CCS and Luminet collaborate on 1 Gbps London small cell backhaul deployment

SON specialist CCS is teaming up with managed services provider Luminet to roll out a small cell backhaul and enterprise network across London.

The wireless backhaul network will be designed to support small cell sites across London, which will initially be targeted as businesses looking to improve connectivity in their offices. Speeds of up to 1 Gbps are being promised and the commercial model will apparently be geared towards offering wireless backhaul to operator small cell deployments.

“The combination of Luminet’s sites and spectrum assets with our self-organising wireless backhaul is a catalyst for improving mobile services across London,” said Steve Greaves, CEO of CCS. “Our flexible mesh architecture enables us to automatically adjust the backhaul topology and assign capacity to wherever mobile operators decide to roll out small cells using Luminet sites. This partnership will simplify and reduce the cost of operators’ small cell deployments considerably.”

Sasha Williamson, CEO, Luminet: “Our partnership with CCS will see one of the first self-organising networks in a tier one global city, and by adopting a neutral host strategy we are enabling how mobile operators can scale with the ongoing increase in mobile data demand in urban areas,” said Sasha Williamson, CEO of Luminet.

“London mobile network congestion is hitting a crunch point – it is one of the most digitally dependent cities in the world and is the epicentre of the UK’s digital economy, which is growing 32 per cent faster than the rest of the economy. In order for the city to retain its competitiveness on a global stage, having the necessary digital infrastructure is paramount.”

Luminet already has over 1,900 fixed access wireless sites in London , as well as two clean 112MHz frequency channels in perpetuity at 28GHz for the M25 region. These will be used by the CCS Metnet SON system in conjunction  with 3D map data to identify demand hotspots. The Small Cell Forum anticipates a demand of 0.01 GkM (Gbps/Km2/MHz), for urban peak data density in London, which this backhaul network intends to provide.