M1 to deploy ‘small cells’ to boost surfing speeds in crowded areas

SINGAPORE — M1 customers can soon look forward to faster surfing speeds in crowded areas: The telco will be deploying mini base stations, which boost 4G coverage, at hundreds of malls, commercial buildings and MRT stations islandwide.

These mini base stations, called small cells, will first be installed at selected locations in the second half of this year, before embarking on an “intensive rollout” between next year and 2017. Places identified include Paragon and Nex shopping malls, as well as Orchard, Raffles Place and Jurong East MRT stations — subject to approvals.

M1’s aim is to wire up hundreds of malls and office buildings in the Central Business District, Orchard Road and suburban areas, as well as major MRT stations with bus interchanges.

Unlike traditional base stations, which can be placed only at certain locations, small cells — about one-eighth the size — can be fixed on ceilings, so surfing speeds will not suffer when a place gets crowded.

Last week, a demonstration by M1 staff at the basement of Paragon, where it was on trial for a week, found that surfing speeds doubled to 108 mbps within the range of the small cells, as it eased the traffic load on the traditional base station.

When tested on the ground floor, where coverage was dependent on the base station, it went back to the average surfing speed of about 50mbps.

Noting the growth in data usage and the Internet of Things, M1 chief operating officer Patrick Scodeller: “If you use traditional (base stations), it would cost you significantly more than deploying small cells to carry the same data, and voice, and connection requirements. So, (small cells is) way, way more cost-effective to provide.”

The scale of the targeted deployment of the small cells will cost M1 tens of millions, he estimates. Deploying small cells, Mr Scodeller added, will also act as a “bridge” to 5G when it is commercially available — industry estimates this would be by 2020.

“5G is supposed to carry the Internet of Things, and mass connectivity, and machine to machine connections — you cannot provide those millions of connections ... without small cells, your traditional cellular network cannot cope with that sort of connection, demand and data throughput,” he said.

M1’s new chief technical officer Denis Seek said deploying small cells will also benefit mall owners as it will not involve cables being ripped out and other messy works.

Mr Scodeller said the small cells are also capable of seamlessly switching mobile devices between different networks such as 4G and Wi-Fi.

This will be tested as part of the HetNet trials in Jurong Lake District, a Smart Nation initiative aimed at realising the vision of people surfing on the move without disruptions. M1 is also in discussions with device manufacturers to enable such seamless switching on mobile devices.

When approached, StarHub said it is also planning to deploy small cells at 40 commercial buildings with high traffic, including hospitals, airport terminals, shopping malls, and event and conference venues. The first deployment has been planned at Marina Bay Sands, said its chief technology officer Mock Pak Lum.

Singtel said it started deploying small cell technology to enhance its 3G and 4G network capacities in the third quarter of last year, with Nex shopping mall planned to be the next in line.