Huawei partners with Ranplan for small cell deployment
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Huawei partners with Ranplan for small cell deployment

Chinese vendor Huawei has signed a global licence agreement with Ranplan to implement small cell wireless networks.

As part of the agreement, Ranplan’s iBuildNet service will replace a series of software tools that are used by Huawei to provide an all-in-one solution for small cell design, simulation and optimisation.

iBuildNet implements advanced 3D building modelling, a 3D ray-tracing propagation engine and powerful data analysis.

The service is designed to predict user quality of experience for complex indoor and outdoor small cell deployments and can automatically optimise Access Point (AP) locations, antenna type, power and channel assignments.

Graham Peel, CEO at Ranplan said that over 80% of traffic is consumed outdoors, but poor performance and bad user experience is still commonplace.

"Huawei's decision to standardise on iBuildNet reflects the exponential increase in demand for data services and the need for a new generation of tools that can speed up the design and reduce the cost of deploying ultra-dense outdoor/indoor wireless networks," he said.

“In addition to dealing with complex structures, terrains and materials, radio planning for outdoor/ indoor environments also has to take into account issues such as interference with macro cells and support for multiple-system technologies," he added.

China Mobile also selected iBuildNet to evaluate third-party network design and deployment last year, in addition to the frequency planning of small cell and heterogeneous networks.

Ranplan is based in the UK with offices in China and is expanding its presence in the US and EMEA markets.

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