1. You’re the (tower) tops:
Commscope claimed that it had, along with Ooredoo, developed “new approach to building wireless networks”. The operator formerly known as QTel and Commscope have co-designed a pre-assembled tower-top for base station remote radios.
Commmscope said that pre-assembly of of the tower tops reduces the installation time by approximately half, leading to safer working conditions for installation staff and reduced network downtime for customers. In addition, by installing the radio equipment on tower tops instead of large air-conditioned shelters, Ooredoo said it expects to halve electricity costs.
The tower top solution will become Ooredoo’s standard cell site design across its markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, as the company upgrades or replaces 15,000 of its base stations over the coming years.
Paul Salmon, Group Chief Technology Officer, Ooredoo, said, “Working with CommScope to develop a new tower top solution that is assembled in a factory will enable us to deliver a distinctly different approach to building and operating a wireless network. We believe this is a first for our industry, and it is a source of considerable pride that it was designed and developed within the region to serve our customers.”
2. Good week for Samsung, which has been hammering on the door of European operators’ network departments for the past two years. The company, which has previously claimed success lay just round the corner, scored an LTE RAN and core network deal with Hutchison 3G Ireland. The company had, in August 2012, already announced a deal with the Hutchison-owned Three UK.
3.Network sharing good: Telefonica O2 Germany is considering the benefits it could gain from sharing bits of network with E-Plus. Although a full merger seems off the table, exploratory work into “potential network synergies” between the two companies may yet results in a network sharing deal,Bloomberg reported.”