Infovista | Network Planning for Fixed Wireless Access eBook

Get actionable insights and real-world case studies to maximize the potential of Fixed Wireless Access and drive success for your business.

Network Planning for Fixed Wireless Access

How to ensure the success of your Fixed Wireless Access service offering

EBOOK

Contents

Introduction

The Fixed Wireless Access opportunity

Where does Fixed Wireless Access make sense?

What are the challenges with Fixed Wireless Access?

Planning and dimensioning a network for Fixed Wireless Access

Assessing the business case

Planning network coverage

Accurately modeling CPEs

Dimensioning the network

Designing the backhaul network

Adding new Fixed Wireless Access subscribers

Assessing Fixed Wireless Access service availability

Assessing network utilization and capacity headroom

The importance of accurate map data

A customer case study

Thank You

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Introduction Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) has been around for many years. So why does it seem to be garnering so much interest lately? The increased throughput and capacity provided by 5G means FWA is now a feasible substitute for fixed broadband from both an end-user performance, and an operator business case, point of view. Due to this, Ericsson is predicting strong growth and service provider revenue opportunities for FWA. Their latest report predicts that by 2029, FWA connections will grow by 200 million, generate about USD 75 billion in service provider revenues and account for 30% of all mobile network data traffic. With numbers like these, and the fact that FWA is currently capturing more than 90% of the fixed broadband net adds in the US , it makes sense that every communications service provider (CSP) is assessing the potential benefits FWA could bring to their business.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

The Fixed Wireless Access opportunity Every CSP is different, but there are two primary groups where offering FWA services will likely make sense: • Mobile network operators can leverage their existing network infrastructure to serve new FWA customers, realizing an additional revenue stream for very little additional network expenditure. • Broadband providers can supplement their existing fixed line offerings with FWA and leverage their brand to capture new subscribers. This scenario will require the CSP to deploy a wireless network to be able to offer FWA. With significantly more spending required, assessing the business case becomes critical.

Where does Fixed Wireless Access make sense? With a wireless network up and running, adding FWA subscribers is relatively quick and simple. There is no trenching of cables and other disruptive construction required. So why does FWA not make sense everywhere? In the not-too-distant future, wireless technologies such as 6G will be able to address all broadband use cases. For now, FWA cannot quite deliver the performance and capacity at scale that cable and fiber can. Therefore, at present FWA is best suited to areas where cable and fiber are not feasible options or are expensive to deploy. Rural, semi-rural and suburban areas are often well-suited. For CSPs who wish to add FWA subscribers to their existing mobile network, it makes sense to offer FWA even in areas where other broadband options are available. In this scenario, it is important to be careful when signing up FWA subscribers so as to not overwhelm the mobile network and impact existing subscribers.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

What are the challenges with Fixed Wireless Access? The primary challenge with FWA is to ensure a stable connection and good throughput. To achieve higher throughputs and good site capacity, so multiple users can be served, it makes sense to use the higher frequency bands for FWA. This means users need to be relatively close to the base station and line of sight (LoS) from the customer premises equipment (CPE) antenna back to the base station is strongly recommended. The other main challenge with FWA, especially for an existing mobile network operator, is that FWA subscribers consume significantly more data than a regular mobile subscriber. According to the latest Ericsson Mobility report , the average mobile subscriber in North America consumes 26GB of data per month while the average for an FWA subscriber is 324GB, over 12x higher! This means every new FWA subscriber added to the network has a significant effect and care needs to be taken when signing up FWA subscribers to ensure the network can handle the demand and other subscribers are not adversely affected.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Planning and dimensioning a network for Fixed Wireless Access

The success of any mobile network starts with the integrity and accuracy of its radio access network (RAN) design. Both a solid RF and backhaul design are required.

How can Infovista help ?

is a multi-technology RF planning and optimization solution that delivers accurate and efficient wireless network designs and optimization.

is a backhaul planning and dimensioning solution for microwave and wireline links, ensuring your backhaul seamlessly supports your wireless network.

Let’s look at some of the main network planning steps to be considered when preparing to launch an FWA service. Not every step will be relevant to every CSP, since for example, some CSPs will already have a 5G network and others won’t.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Assessing the business case

How can Planet help ?

Critical to the success of an FWA service is validation that the planned investment produces the required return on that investment. For a CSP without a mobile network the investment will be significant, and this will be an important first step. For a CSP with an existing mobile network, the investment will be less, but validation of the business case should still be undertaken. In the case of an existing mobile network, ensuring there is sufficient investment so that the FWA subscribers do not degrade the network for existing users is perhaps the most important consideration.

Planet can provide valuable information when assessing the business case for deploying an FWA service. For a greenfield network it can determine the optimal network required to deliver the desired FWA service. The cost for building this network can then be factored into the business case. For an existing mobile network, Planet can take inputs including the expected uptake of FWA subscribers and determine the impact on the existing network. It can highlight what upgrades would be required to ensure good FWA service and no degradation in the quality of experience for existing mobile subscribers.

Planning network coverage Planning a mobile network to support FWA services is largely the same as planning any other mobile network but there are a few subtleties that need to be considered. The first is that FWA traffic is likely to be concentrated around suburban and small business areas with less traffic in dense urban areas than a traditional mobile network. For a greenfield network it might make sense to build more rural sites than it would if considering only mobile subscribers. For existing mobile operators, assessing expanding their network with more rural coverage would be a good strategy. When planning sites, it is also critical to consider line of sight to potential customers. This is not something that is typically considered when planning a traditional mobile network.

How can Planet help ?

Planet is a market-leading radio planning tool. It leverages AI and automation to deliver more accurate network designs in less time, shortening overall time to launch and ensuring the minimization of Capital Expenditure. For FWA planning, Planet’s unique viewshed analysis provides the ability to assess each potential base station location and configuration to maximize the LoS to potential FWA customers. Critical for delivering maximum FWA impact per base station.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Accurately modeling CPEs For most network planning the market leading tools assume all users have traditional mobile phones with omni-directional antennas at approximately 1.5m above ground level. There are also various strategies and algorithms to intelligently distribute traffic within buildings. FWA CPEs come in many different shapes and sizes. They often have higher gain directional antennas and can be mounted in numerous different ways including on the inside of a window, on a building façade or on a pole above the building. Your planning tool needs to be able to specify the performance and mounting attributes of different CPEs to ensure accurate modeling.

How can Planet help ?

For each FWA subscriber, Planet can fully configure the CPEs characteristics and installation parameters including the CPE antenna height and gain. A user can set the CPE antenna azimuth and tilt, or Planet can determine the optimal settings which can then be deployed in the field. For accurate network analysis a CPE can also be assigned speed and usage limits if the operator has various tiered packages available.

Dimensioning the network When you think of a network design, most people focus on the coverage it provides. But accurate dimensioning is just as important, and perhaps even more critical for a network with FWA subscribers, where a typical user consumes 12x more data than a regular mobile subscriber.

How can Planet help ?

Traffic analysis and network dimensioning are key capabilities of Planet. Planet can analyze a network of just FWA subscribers and perform Monte Carlo analysis on a network with both mobile and FWA subscribers. It can also forecast future network capacity and highlight when upgrades are required to prevent network congestion and ensure throughputs remain above minimum specified thresholds.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Designing the backhaul network While the RF network may be the star of the show, the backhaul network that connects all the base stations back to the core network is equally critical. A well designed backhaul network needs to have sufficient capacity to support the expected FWA traffic and it needs to have built in link redundancy to ensure high network availability and ultimately happy subscribers.

How can Ellipse help ?

5G network backhaul planning Enables accurate LoS and non-LoS backhaul planning in dense urban areas.

Link performance analysis Ensures the highest level of simulation accuracy with extensive path-profile analysis.

Automated topology design Automatically determines the best topology to carry traffic across your network.

Transport network design and optimization Defines, creates, and analyzes circuits and rings across your transport network.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Adding new Fixed Wireless Access subscribers

Once you have launched your FWA service, the need for continuous planning, analysis and optimization of the network doesn’t end.

Assessing Fixed Wireless Access service availability Before signing up each new subscriber, it is critical to validate that they have FWA service availability at their requested location (i.e., they have LoS to one of your base stations). Failure to do this could result in additional installation costs to, for example, raise the height of the CPE antenna. At worst you may have to cancel the contract because you are unable to provide FWA service at their location, creating a very poor customer experience.

How can Planet help ?

Planet provides several tools to assess FWA service at a specific location. The traditional way to do this is to inspect a point on the map. However, due to the integrated Bing and OpenStreetMap maps in Planet, users can also simply search for a customer’s address to identify their location. With the address identified, Planet’s point to multi-point Line of Sight analysis can be used to confirm the CPE would have LoS to one of the base stations. If there is LoS to multiple base stations, Planet can also determine the best server. In cases where no LoS exists, Planet can be used to determine how much the CPE antenna would need to be raised to achieve LoS and if this would be feasible. During a busy FWA roll out, a user might want to assess multiple CPE locations at once for efficiency. In this scenario, Planet’s multi-point to multi-point analysis can be used to simultaneously determine the best LoS for multiple CPEs.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

Assessing network utilization and capacity headroom Another key aspect is assessing the utilization of cell sites to understand how many new FWA subscribers they can handle before upgrades are required. With FWA users consuming 12x more data than regular mobile subscribes, signing up too many FWA subscribers in a specific area without checking for capacity headroom will result in a poor quality of experience for both your FWA subscribers and your existing mobile subscribers.

How can Planet help ?

Planet has comprehensive traffic analysis including Monte Carlo analysis for a mix of mobile and FWA subscribers. FWA subscribers can also consist of a mix of different speed tiered options. To further improve the accuracy of the analysis, it is possible to import usage data from existing CPEs into Planet and to use those figures in the analysis. This analysis leads to a comprehensive view of how many FWA subscribers can be safely added to each cell in the network. Building on this analysis, Planet can also ingest traffic forecast data and automatically identify the network upgrades that would be required to serve the expected traffic growth, ensuring you can upgrade your network in line with your FWA growth predictions and continuously to deliver excellent quality of service.

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

The importance of accurate map data We have spoken above about how critical an accurate network design is to ensure the network you build is able to deliver the quality of experience your FWA subscribers’ demand. We have also highlighted the importance of confirming a subscriber has adequate coverage at their address before signing them up for an FWA contract. Both rely on hyper-accurate maps on which to base the modeling of the network. Without accurate maps, any output from a planning tool cannot be confidently relied upon.

A customer case study The importance of accurate map data was illustrated by an FWA customer of ours who conducted a detailed assessment in the early days of their FWA roll out. They were having many issues where they believed a new customer had LoS to a base station and could be offered an FWA contract only to find on installation day that LoS did not exist. They also had a hunch they were turning down several potential customers because they did not have LoS according to the planning tool, when in fact they did. This led them to investigate. They found that when using their existing 10m resolution 2D data they had a 15% rate of false LoS (customer who they thought had line of sight but didn’t) and a 17% rate of false non-LoS (customers who they thought didn’t have line of sight but in fact they did). This amounted to approximately USD 55,000 per site in lost or uncaptured revenues. That number, when multiplied by their total number of sites, was a very significant amount of money. By purchasing premium 1m resolution 3D data for a fraction of the lost revenues cost, they were able to reduce both these errors to almost zero.

How can Infovista help ?

Infovista’s Geodata portfolio delivers modern digital maps for accurate RF network design. The range includes: Cityscapes - modest resolution 2D maps for planning large areas where accuracy is not critical, Cityscapes HD - 2.5D maps suited to suburban type environments, and Skylines – ultra high-resolution 3D maps with detailed building and vegetation polygons for maximum accuracy when planning in dense urban areas and other high-accuracy projects such as FWA deployments.

Thank You

We hope you have found this eBook useful. If you would like to learn more about how Infovista and our solutions can help you on your FWA journey, please contact us .

NETWORK PLANNING FOR FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS

The following Infovista products were mentioned in this eBook:

Planet Deliver exceptional radio designs with the world’s first AI-powered RF planning solution. With Planet, planning engineers can deliver higher quality radio network designs within the ever-tighter budgets and shorter deadlines demanded by the business. 3D simulation technologies, underpinned by machine learning and multiple live data sources, help you create more accurate designs. While comprehensive what-if scenario planning ensures maximum return on CAPEX investments and automation of planning tasks increases engineering efficiency, reducing the time-to-market of new designs.

Ellipse Deliver efficient backhaul dimensioning and microwave link planning to support your mobile network. Ellipse software enables you to plan, dimension and optimize any wireless or wired backhaul network. It includes support for the design of the latest 5G X-haul technologies relying on point-to-point and/or point-to-multipoint wireless transmission and incorporates all the latest ITU and 3GPP specifications for the most accurate and efficient transport network design and optimization. Ellipse helps you ensure the backhaul capacity and availability to support your network.

Geodata

Model your network with confidence using digital maps designed specifically for RF planning. Our premium geodata offering provides high-resolution (1-2m) digital maps with 3D building and vegetation polygons, designed specifically for RF planning. This is critical for accurate planning of 5G in dense urban areas and especially at mmWave frequencies. For areas where lower resolution data is acceptable, we offer a 2.5D medium resolution (5-10m) solution, ideal for suburban areas, and a 2D low resolution (20m+) solution for nationwide and large coverage footprints.

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