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America Movils new start in Panama

America Movil's new start in Panama

By Sun Yiran

With 153 million subscribers, America Movil is the largest mobile service provider in Latin America, and ranks as the fourth largest in the world. America Movil currently services over 770 million people in 17 countries and its business continues to expand at a rapid rate. With an abundance of operation experience and incomparable development strategy, America Movil currently dominants more than half of the Latin American market, and continually strives towards reaching even higher goals.

America Movils new start

atin America is one of America Movils fastest growing mobile markets, yet its penetration rate is only 30%, which means that this market has tremendous development potential. The YANKEE group predicts that data services will constitute about 16% of mobile services due to the growing demand for mobile broadband services in Latin America. Therefore, America Movil sees a continued expansion of the Latin American mobile market and views it as a long-term strategic target. In Latin America, the average Panama citizens income is relatively high, but the current development level of the telecom industry is well below the medium level of what you would expect to find in a developed country. The number of mobile subscribers is approximately 1.6 million and continues to grow at a rate of about 26% each year, which clearly shows that there is still great development potential. 27 DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45

Huawei Communicate

In Ma y o f 2 0 0 8 , A m e r i c a Mov i l obtained a new mobile license to operate in Panama. In order to seize this golden opportunity, America Movil quickly mapped out a development strategy for constructing a nationwide network, the overall aim of which will be the merging of GSM and UMTS within three years time. In addition, another strategic concept of America Movils high-level administration is to evolve into a next generation network in the near future. Specifically, it will continue to strive to improve overall network performance and processing capability, by constructing a convergent and efficient IP-based network. Moreover, its overall aim will also be to elevate its core competitiveness and expand market shares via advanced technologies and services. Consequently, based on America Movils strategic conception of evolution toward becoming a next generation network, Huawei proposes its Single RAN solution. That is, through a type of BTSs, a RAN that allows for the coexistence of multiple wireless systems can be constructed. As it happens, this solution effectually coincides with America Movils development strategy. Subsequently, America Movil became deeply fascinated by Huaweis solution and decided to adopt it.

Constructing a green mobile network

Panama is an important transportation hub that links Central America to South America, and is commonly recognized as being the bridge of the world, with well-developed water, land, and air transportation systems. It is also a bustling tourist city with rigid environmental protection requirements established by the local government. In Panama, Conserve e n e r g y a n d re d u c e e m i s s i o n , t o l e t technologies coexist with the environment has become a social responsibility of America Movil. Thus, to achieve the above mentioned environmental protection requirements, America Movil enforces rigid rules in regards to the equipment and resources it utilizes for network construction.

Huaweis Single RAN solution applies unified 4th generation BTSs, BSCs, operation and maintenance management, and site integration in order to achieve the convergence and evolution of different technology systems, so that America Movil will be able to construct a more simplified, carefree green mobile network in Panama. First, the base station of the Single RAN solution allows GSM and UMTS BTSs to share the same platform, reduces construction cost by merging multiple systems, and supports the coexistence and smooth evolution of 2G and 3G networks. Hence, this type of base station can effectively help America Movil to save in terms of construction costs, implement unified maintenance, and shorten the project period, resulting in a reduction of over 30% in total cost of ownership (TCO). Second, in Panama, America Movil needs to deploy over 600 sites. Traditional base stations consume a huge amount of electrical power. However, the base station of the Single RAN solution utilizes DPD+Doher ty technology, which is commonly associated with advanced technology that manages power amplification (PA) consumption such as technologies used for intelligently shutting down the PA and dynamically adjusting the voltage of the PA. As a result, this enhances the efficiency of the RF PA by 50% and saves on power consumption by nearly 50%, when compared with traditional base stations. Therefore, America Movil should be able to save approximately 10 million kWh of electricity by deploying 600 green sites, which is equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 6,600 tons. Furthermore, in Panamas peak tourist season, the number of tourists sharply increases, which quickly leads to growing requirements and need for capacity expansion of base stations in urban areas. Accordingly, the base station of the Single RAN solution is highly modularized and integrated with baseband and RF modules. Multi-carrier and RF wideband technologies are adopted, which allows the capacity of the base station to be greatly expanded and the network coverage capacity to be enhanced by 30%. In

addition, the baseband module is 1U to 2U, but the capacity is over five times larger than that of a traditional base station; with the 60W MRRU, the size and weight of the RF module is unchanged, but its capacity is two or three times as large as that of the RF module of a traditional base station. Hence, this fully satisfies the requirements for a larger capacity for base stations located in urban areas during Panamas peak tourist season. As a result, America Movil will be able to reduce its total number of base stations and auxiliary equipment by 50% when it deploys its nationwide mobile network in Panama. In summary, by adopting innovative technologies such as a high-efficiency PA, multi-carrier, modularization, and temperature control, the Single RAN solution reduces power consumption by over 60% and helps America Movil implement energy, material and land conservation, along with a reduction in labor, thus, creating a win-win situation in terms of environmental protection and economic benefits. Furthermore, for smooth evolution of the network in the future, the Single RAN solution supports the HSPA and LTE, so that different systems can be supported only through software upgrades. In this way, the requirements of America Movil for network platform evolution, as well as long-term protection of its investment, are fundamentally satisfied. America Movil has granted Huawei a two-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) concession. During the concession, Huawei will be completely responsible for the construction of the mobile network in Panama. Huaweis Single RAN green solution helps America Movil for the first time to deploy an end-to-end All-IP network. It also enables America Movil to greatly enhance the bandwidth throughput of the whole system, and to deploy more flexible mobile broadband services. With the growing demand for data services, America Movil is striving to speed up its deployment of EDGE and HSPA services in order to attract more highend users and to provide more diversified communications and multimedia experiences to its customers. Editor: Li Xuefeng xuefengli@huawei.com
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45

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