Last Updated on August 18, 2022
Ncell, the private telecom operator has installed more pole towers in the city area. Ncell adopts new technologies ahead of others and this also proves it. As the city areas need a higher capacity 4G network, Ncell increases the number of base stations (BTS) there. This is their effort to provide higher speed in 4G to its customers. Find out more information on the Ncell pole tower in hotspot areas.
First of all, let us discuss what are the hotspot area, small cell, and pole tower.
Hotspot
Hotspot area in telecom terms is a location where there is a large number of mobile users in the mobile network. These days, data has become a dominant service in the telecom network. So, hotspot refers to the areas where a huge no. of users are picking the internet with their mobile phones.
In such areas, as a large number of users attaches to a particular base station, they share the total internet bandwidth of the base station tower. Which results in lower data speed as the number of users becomes high. So, in such locations, the experience of the internet speed goes down heavily, with the user number.
Small cell
To solve the sluggish data issues, telcos prefer to use small cells among which the pole tower is one of them. Small cells are the kind of base stations whose coverage is limited (small) and their main purpose is to add more capacity in the hotspot areas. These cells are also put in lower height above the ground. Although this kind of technology is used globally to meet the traffic demand, only Ncell uses this small cell concept in Nepal.
Normally, all the telcos put base stations (BTS) either in a big tower or on the top of the roof. But as the demand goes high in a particular area, they put such small cells to give a better experience to their users. This sort of base stations is used in city areas where the population density (subscriber/user density) is quite high.
Pole tower
Pole tower is a type of small base station that is mounted on a pole, that are already available in the street/road. Telecom operators identify the hotspot locations and put the pole tower to boost the capacity of the network. Such pole towers are more used for 3G and 4G technology, in which data speed is a key indicator of quality of the mobile networks.
Telcos use optical fiber to connect the pole towers to the telecom office via optical fiber which can cater to data speed in Gbps.
The installation of a Pole tower is also quite easy and fast, while comparing to that of the base station over the large towers or above the houses. The cost of building Pole tower is also less than that of the big towers. The telcos can also overcome the problem of renting houses for telecom towers, which is one of the biggest challenges for telcos in Nepal.
Ncell pole tower
Due to the above advantages, Ncell had started building such a pole tower (small cell) for some time. Now as their data-hungry customers are increasing in the city areas, they have increased the number of such pole towers.
Earlier Ncell had also used latest technology in frequency sharing to upgrade its 4G LTE speed. Now with such pole towers, they are trying to guarantee some data speed in the range of 10 Mbps.
As known, Ncell has rented the pole of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) to put the compact base stations over it. There are also similar poles for telephone lines. But there is no chance for Ncell to use it, as it is owned by Ntc. Nepal Telecom itself has their plan to implement such pole towers. We don’t know yet when Ntc pole tower will come to serve it’s customers.
Till now, we have found such Ncell Pole tower in Kathmandu and Pokhara city, used in the areas like Pulchowk, Thamel, Lakeside, etc. We have tested the Ncell 4G speed in some locations nearby the pole tower. Where we found a consistent 4G speed of over 30 Mbps. The 4G speed varies according to the number of users in that base station.
After installing such towers in the busy streets, Ncell now moves towards residential areas. The reason being the difficulty to get house rent for a tower in residential areas. With those small towers, Ncell can install base stations in a very short period of time.
Tell us what do you think of Ncell pole tower and your experience of Ncell 4G in the comment section below.
