Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has just launched their “High-Performance Site Solution”. It’s basically a cell tower on steroids. In the photo above, what looks like a triangle on a stick, that’s a cell tower. Each tip of that triangle blasts cellular waves into the air and gives customers the ability to call their mother or download Japanese tentacle rape porn while on the go; this is called a 3 sector site. What NSN has done is double the number of sectors on each tower. Doing that has given each individual tower the capability to support 80% more data and voice traffic, and at the same time provide 40% more coverage per tower. Fewer towers = lowered initial investment (CAPEX) in network equipment, and lowered operating expenses (OPEX) for maintaining said network. This new tower supports 2G, 3G, and even LTE networks with a firmware update. With luck, other network vendors will copy NSN’s solution and we’ll all connect to a better network in the future.
[Via: Press Release]
Update: While Googling around to learn the advantage to multi sector cell sites, I stumbled across this highly informative case study done by Ericsson in the Spring of 2006. Their work confirms the claims of NSN’s new product:
The resulting capacities are equivalent to a capacity increase of 86% when doubling the cells from 3 to 6 and an additional capacity increase of 74% for a second doubling from 6 to 12 cells per site. Thus, the expected capacity increase per site is about 1.8x for doubling the number of cells per site.