BT Openreach Launch New Rural Mobile Infill Solution to Tackle UK Notspots

BTOpenreach recently completed a field trial of a new Mobile Infill Infrastructure Solution (MiiS), which is designed to leverage BT’s existing fixed line network in order to deliver mobile services into areas that suffer from “non-existent or patchy” coverage, and has now made the product available to mobile operators and ISPs across the United Kingdom.

Unfortunately bringing mobile coverage into some areas can be fraught with difficulty, such as the high cost of building new infrastructure and capacity. But Opeanreach hopes that operators will be attracted to MiiS as an alternative, which can enable micro-cell sites by using BT’s existing telegraph poles (excluding in Northern Ireland) to position antennas, which are supported by powered Street Cabinets (MNO customers install radio equipment into these and use licensed spectrum to provide mobile coverage).

MiiS – How does it work?

You and your MNO customers will be able to select pole locations of your choice from the large catalogue of existing Openreach poles. These will be surveyed by Openreach to confirm suitability. Once a suitable site is selected you will be able to choose from a number of antenna variants covering both 3G and 4G mobile spectrum:

• 696MHz to 960MHz 2 sector antenna
• 1710MHz to 2690MHz 2 and 3 sector antennas

In addition to this a street cabinet will be deployed close to the chosen pole site and will be supplied with power and will support radio equipment from a number of mobile equipment vendors. The cabinet will also be able to support the provision of suitable connectivity products from the Openreach portfolio in order for you to connect the site to your network and backhaul radio traffic. Note the provision of the circuit is not part of this product and will need to be ordered and purchased separately.

One potential secondary advantage of a product like this is through the benefit from having an additional investment incentive, which could make it more economical for BT to expand their superfast broadband (FTTC/P) network into more remote locations (provided they can get mobile operators interested in the same areas).

At the time of writing we do not yet know which operators plan to make use of the service, although clearly there must be some interest otherwise Openreach wouldn’t have built it. The new MiiS product will officially become available to order from the 23rd October 2014.