Small Cells for 5G

In News: To expedite the roll out of 5G, telecom operators in the country will leverage street furniture such as poles, advertisement hoardings and bus shelters for deploying low power base stations called ‘Small Cells’ that will help bring the network closer to the consumers.

Key Highlights

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a consultation paper on the Use of street furniture for small cell and aerial fibre deployment, wherein it states that Small Cells will play a critical role in success of 5G as these are needed to exploit features of 5G such as low latency (minimal delay times), ultra-high speeds, and massive connection densities.
• As the network frequency travels a very low distance, hence the wavelength is lower at higher frequency. To get high frequency, the establishment of Small Cells is necessary for deploying 5G as opposed to earlier generations such as 4G.
• For deploying the 5G network poles such as street lights, electricity and traffic poles will be used to install Small Cells, and a good ecosystem of such poles already exists throughout the nation.

Small Cells

• Small cell is an umbrella term used to describe a miniature radio access point (AP) or wireless network base station with a low radio frequency (RF) power output, footprint, and range.
• These are low-powered radio access nodes or base stations that have a coverage range from a few metres to a few hundred metres.
• They are portable, easy to deploy and help provide localised coverage.
• Small Cells provide coverage for very short distances and therefore they are installed in a large number for good geographical coverage to provide highly reliable and high-capacity broadband.
• Considering the present situation, the fifth-generation (5G) small cell is poised to usher in an era of innovation on a massive scale, ensuring significantly improved signal penetration and superior coverage.

Must Read: 5G technology

Source: The Hindu

Previous Year Question

With reference to communication technologies, what is/are the difference/differences between LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and VoLTE (Voice over Long-Term Evolution)? (2019)

1. LTE is commonly marketed as 3G and VoLTE is commonly marketed as advanced 3G.
2. LTE is data-only technology and VoLTE is voice-only technology.

Select the correct answer using the code given below

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2