Mid-Tex Cellular

Case Study: Mid-Tex Cellular
Anywave® Addresses Unique Challenges of Rural Operators
The Challenge
• Declining roaming revenues
A rural Texas operator needed to create new sources of
income to compensate for declining roaming revenue
• Acquisitions changed competitive landscape
Dobson Cellular acquisition threatened GSM roaming
relationship with AT&T
• Large geographic territory
8,000 square miles with widely dispersed cell sites
made technical field support very time consuming and
costly
• Overbuild threat
Needed to fend off the threat of nationwide carrier
build-out into Mid-Tex’s coverage area
“Our monthly backhaul costs
are literally half what they would
have been with other cellular
infrastructure approaches because
Vanu’s IP-based system shares a
common link across GSM and
CDMA within each base station.”
- Toney Prather,
CEO, Mid-Tex Cellular
The Solution
• Anywave® Software Radio
»» Multi-standard infrastructure which delivered a
single system for GSM/GPRS and CDMA
»» Simultaneous operation of multiple standards on a
single system
»» Remote software downloads for additional capacity
and standards upgrades
The Benefits
• New revenue from second standard
CDMA was quickly and cost-effectively added to the
Anywave GSM network, creating new roaming revenue
sources with Verizon and Alltel
• Significant RAN CAPEX savings
Capital equipment costs were minimized as same
hardware platform was used for both GSM and CDMA
at each site
• Eliminated switch CAPEX for second standard
Hosted switch service eliminated the upfront cost of a
CDMA MSC
• Reduced backhaul costs
IP-based backhaul reduced cost by sharing backhaul
between GSM and CDMA for both voice and data
• Reduced site maintenance costs
Remote software downloads from a single location
reduced cell site visits to implement new standards and
add system capacity for growth
Background
Mid-Tex Cellular was very typical of many rural carriers
who were operating analog cellular service. Over ten
years, Mid-Tex had invested in 34 TDMA 850 MHz cell
sites when they started their cellular operation in the
vast rural stretches of central Texas. In 2003, Mid-Tex
faced a business environment where new wireless standards were being brought to market at a faster rate,
which meant they had to replicate their infrastructure
investment with every new wireless standard being introduced.
The financial viability of being able to keep up with
the pace of innovation was a challenge which forced
a tough decision upon Mid-Tex: Should they buy, build
and support a dedicated, digital cellular infrastructure
that could operate only one wireless standard, or should
they delay any further investment, knowing that they
could fall behind nationwide carriers, lose market share
and forego the opportunity for incremental roaming
revenue?
The Challenge
As Mid-Tex Cellular reviewed their operation, they found
themselves facing a business with declining roaming
revenues. There also existed the threat of nationwide
carriers who were acquiring smaller operators while
considering rural area build-out of their digital networks
where roaming coverage didn’t exist. In response to
this, Mid-Tex was looking for a solution that would enable them to:
• Deploy new services efficiently and cost-effectively
without requiring a substantial fork-lift upgrade investment with every new technology deployed;
• Reduce costly field support visits and long distance
travel every time base station capacity needs to be
increased;
• Reduce backhaul costs;
• Avoid the pitfall of growing a network over time with
technology that continues to get older and less capable than new products that enter the market.
Added to this was the challenge that Mid-Tex wanted a
solution that would enable them to add new standards
in the future without having to incur significant increases
in real estate and utility costs at every cell site.
Base Station Hut Talpa, TX
Opportunities for roaming revenues with nationwide
carriers had been an important part of Mid-Tex’s analog business, but the industry had already transitioned
to digital networks. If Mid-Tex didn’t implement GSM,
CDMA or both soon, the roaming opportunities for
these growth businesses would pass them by. But how
could Mid-Tex accomplish their goal of keeping pace
with technology without making a major infrastructure
investment each and every time they wanted to launch
a new service? For this, Mid-Tex wanted one infrastructure solution that could accommodate the technology
they wanted immediately, while being able to use that
same system to easily and cost-effectively add future
standards.
For help they turned to Vanu, Inc., developer of the Vanu
Anywave software radio solution.
Blanket, TX Dish and Tower
The Solution
In March 2004, with an analog system already in operation, Mid-Tex deployed a GSM overlay system by installing Vanu’s Anywave GSM/GPRS radio access network
into many of their existing sites. The legacy equipment
supporting the analog system occupied two entire racks
of hardware while the Vanu GSM solution replicated
the same system capacity in virtually 1/10 the footprint.
At the core of each base station was the Anywave GSM
software. Instead of using proprietary hardware components, such as ASICs, DSPs and FPGAs, the entire
GSM standard, including the physical layer, was written completely in high level C++ software running in a
general purpose processing environment. This allowed
all of the signal processing functions and GSM standard
implementation to run on industry-standard servers.
For signal processing, no proprietary hardware components were used, a significant departure from traditional cellular systems, where hardware “lock-in” is an
inherent characteristic that presents price-performance
disadvantages to operators over time. The Anywave
GSM processing platform was supported by the other
major components of the Vanu solution: the RF head,
RF duplexer, GPS for timing reference accuracy and a
multi-carrier power amplifier (MCPA) which boosts the
low power RF signal from the RF head while being able
to support more than one wireless standard.
The base station server and RF head were co-located
at each antenna site while the base station controller
(BSC) and other functions were centralized. Industrystandard routers provided IP connectivity between each
cell site and the central BSC, which implemented the
Anywave GSM software on IT-grade servers connected
by gigabit Ethernet.
Once the GSM system was deployed, Mid-Tex was able
to quickly add new revenue sources through roaming
agreements they structured with T-Mobile and Cingular (now AT&T). It was a winwin situation-- national carriers
could increase coverage and
revenues with zero investment
and Mid-Tex was in a position to capture incremental
subscriber minutes throughout
their large geographic territory.
In addition, as GSM traffic increased, Mid-Tex was able to
quickly add capacity to specific
base stations via remote software downloads from a central
location, which eliminated the
need for cell site visits.
single network. Additionally, there is only one set of
RF equipment being shared across technologies. Another economic advantage was also achieved through
Vanu’s partnership with Globecomm Systems Inc., who
eliminated Mid-Tex’s large upfront expense to purchase
a CDMA mobile switching center (MSC) by providing
them with a hosted switch service where Mid-Tex pays
on a per-month, per-subscriber basis. This is especially
attractive for Mid-Tex, and other rural operators, as the
CDMA offering is being used entirely by roamers, not
local subscribers, and the amount of anticipated traffic
would not have justified the expense of acquiring a dedicated
CDMA switch.
“With the addition of CDMA
to our existing GSM network,
we carried over 170,000 incremental minutes of use in
the first three weeks of operation”, said Toney Prather, CEO
of Mid-Tex. “Also, our monthly
backhaul costs are literally half
what they would have been with
other cellular infrastructure approaches because Vanu’s IPbased system shares a common
link across GSM and CDMA
within each base station.”
With a healthy GSM business
growing well, Mid-Tex then
encountered the Dobson Cellular acquisition by AT&T, who
Prather added, “One other sigquickly transitioned their GSM
nificant advantage to Vanu’s
roaming subscribers over to
software radio technology is
Dobson. Fortunate for Midthat it uses off-the-shelf servTex, however, the Anywave sysers for all signal processing.
tem could quickly add CDMA,
With no proprietary hardware
which they did in November
required, that means there’s
2007 when they successfully
no lead-time to order product,
Base Station and Tower Bangs, TX
launched the industry’s first
we don’t have to carry channel
network to simultaneously opcard inventory and as our syserate multiple standards on a single system. There was
tem expands, it’s always taking advantage of the latest
no duplication of the base station hardware as CDMA
and greatest price-performance improvements in the
was easily added to each site via remote software downcomputer industry.”
loads. Cell site operating and capital costs were significantly reduced through the use of Vanu’s software radio
Moore’s Law shows us that computer processing capatechnology, a task which would typically have involved
bilities double every 18 months, which enables Vanu to
months of logistics planning, inventorying of channel
deliver a significant advantage. While traditional celcards, coordination of field support teams and numerlular systems are expanding coverage or capacity based
ous site visits to install and optimize hardware at each
on old hardware designs that are quickly becoming obsite.
solete, Vanu base stations continue to utilize the newest
advances the IT industry has to offer throughout the life
All standards, GSM/GPRS and CDMA, are currently
of the system. With Vanu’s approach, the carrier’s sysoperating in the 800MHz band and are supported by a
tem continues to get better over time.
“A significant advantage
to Vanu’s software radio
technology is that it uses
off-the-shelf servers for all
signal processing. With
no proprietary hardware
required, that means
there’s no lead-time to
order product, we don’t
have to carry channel
card inventory and as
our system expands, it’s
always taking advantage
of the latest and greatest
price-performance
improvements in the
computer industry.”
Power Distribution Unit
RF TX/RX and digitizer
Duplexer
Circuit Breaker Panel
Power Modules
Anywave Signal
Processing Server
Power Amplifiers
PA connector panel
GPS frequency reference
- Toney Prather,
CEO, Mid-Tex Cellular
Vanu Anywave® Base Station
Future Plans
Mid-Tex is well-positioned for the future with Vanu’s Anywave software radio solution. They have been able to create a
single system that addresses their business needs today while providing an easy, more cost-effective path to 3G technology when the time is right. Mid-Tex moves forward knowing that they have the flexibility to add capacity immediately and
remotely, when and where it’s needed. And from an operating cost standpoint, they expect to see ongoing reductions
in expense, thanks in part to Vanu’s software radio solution.
View of Santa Anna, TX As Seen From the Cell Tower
One Cambridge Center • Cambridge, MA 02142
617-864-1711 • www.vanu.com • [email protected]