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38 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON
SUMME R 20 1 6
AN ARTFUL SOLUTION
W
e are at the beginning of
an era where smart mobile
devices form an integral
part of our day-to-day lives. A rapid
increase in the use of smart phones,
tablets and connected cars, coupled
with data-intensive applications such
as HD video streaming, is creating an
almost exponential increase in mobile
data demand worldwide – and it’s a
trajectory that shows no sign of
letting up.
According to the
Cisco Visual
Networking Index: Global Mobile Data
Traffic Forecast Update, 2015–2020
white paper, global mobile data
traffic will increase nearly eightfold
between 2015 and 2020. Mobile data
traffic will grow at a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 53% from 2015
to 2020, reaching 30.6 exabytes per
month by 2020.
“Asia Pacific will account for 45%
of global mobile traffic by 2020, the
largest share of traffic by any region by
a substantial margin. North America,
which had the second-largest traffic
share in 2015, will have only the
fourth-largest share by 2020, having
been surpassed by Central and Eastern
Europe and Middle East and Africa.
Middle East and Africa will experience
the highest CAGR of 71%, increasing
nearly 15-fold over the forecast period.
Asia Pacific will have the second-highest
CAGR of 54%, increasing nearly ninefold
over the forecast period,” it says.
Many industry bodies believe this
growth will see our finite spectrum
running out of data capacity. But
Silicon Valley start-up, Artemis,
may have created a solution: pCell
technology, a wireless system the
company claims can achieve mobile
data rates over 50 times the capacity
of current systems. And all while
maintaining compatibility with legacy
LTE devices.
Current cellular networks work
by each tower transmitting a radio
signal that forms a large cell. Each cell
must avoid interference with other
cells. Every user within a cell’s radius
shares the cell’s capacity with every
other user, effectively taking turns so
they don’t interfere with each other.
According to Artemis, even with more
spectrum and smaller cells, demand is
outpacing capacity and we will soon
hit a physics upper limit.
“We’re running out of spectrum
and current technologies that are
using densification through small
cells in 4G LTE networks are not
enough for satisfying such a
skyrocketing growth in data traffic,”
says Artemis principal scientist and
co-founder Antonio Forensa.
pCell, the company says, provides a
solution to this problem by increasing
WITH MASSIVE GROWTH
IN MOBILE DATA TRAFFIC,
TRADITIONAL CELLULAR
NETWORKS ARE IN DANGER
OF EXCEEDING CAPACITY. BUT
ARTEMIS, A SILICON VALLEY
START-UP, MAY HAVE JUST
TURNED THE PROBLEM ON ITS
HEAD.
JACOBHARRIS
EXPLAINS.
Downlink Spectral Efficiency
5MHz, 2-antenna LTE devices
Presented results
1.7 bps/Hz
per sector
59.3 bps/Hz
per area in 1m3
1.2 bps/Hz
per sector
LTE
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
HSPA
PCell
pCell technology from Artemis claims
mobile data rates over 50 times the
capacity of current systems.
Figure 1: Spectral efficiency of up to 59.3bps/Hz with 16 4G LTE devices clustered in 1m
2.
MOBILE NETWORKS