Category: Events

Taking place in the historical landmark Dolce Hayes Mansion (this place is pretty neat – it once had its own power plant, post office and railroad station!) our San Jose seminar was a valuable get together with the wireless industry to talk about small cells and how iBwave can help to streamline in-building deployments.

Kicking off the seminar in early afternoon, we started to get to know everyone with welcomes and introductions before giving everyone an overview of iBwave, our products, and what’s new.

Next up, Tassos Michail, Director of Product Management at SpiderCloud took the floor to get our afternoon going with their case study “A Scalable Small Cell System”.  The presentation walked us through examples of deployments they have done for enterprise customers including a metropolitan government organization, a large global financial institution, and a large ad agency with multiple buildings.

After SpiderCloud, it was time to hear from another industry leader – Repeated Signal Solutions. During this presentation, Pete Bohley VP and COO of Repeated Signal took the stage to present us with “Optimizing the In-Building Design Process with iBwave Mobile”– where as the title indicates, the emphasis was on how Repeated Signals has saved time and money by using the iBwave Mobile app during site surveys.  Pete emphasized the need to capture information from many different experts during the survey phase of deployment, and how using iBwave Mobile can significantly increase the efficiencies of doing so – and ensuring that communication

Here’s 3 key benefits Repeated Signal has seen using iBwave Mobile:

1. No more digital camera (pics are taken directly with the tablet)
2. No more lost plans/notes
3. Significant increase in the accuracy of team communications

After Repeated Signal wrapped up their presentation, it was time to take a deeper dive into how iBwave Mobile  is shifting the way companies are performing on-site small cell and Wi-Fi designs in the field. To do this we worked our way through a typical small cells deployment lifecycle to highlight how using iBwave Mobile is a way to streamline it.

Here’s 5 key ways iBwave Mobile can streamline in-building design:

1. Digitizes all notes, pictures and drawings during survey
2. RF measurements from collection tools can be integrated into the design on-site
3. Small cell designs can be completed on-site
4. Building models can be quickly completed on-site using zones (no walls)
5. Design files can be quickly uploaded to the engineering office

After working our way through the small cells deployment cycle, it was time to give our brains a rest and grab a coffee!

Coming back from our break it was time for one of the highlights of our time together – an interactive discussion and rapid fire panel with experts from our industry: Tassos Michail from SpiderCloud Wireless, Bryan Kemper from HetNet Wireless and Pablo Boas from Redwood Electric Group.

And what were the topics on the menu? Small cells, the U.S in-building industry and the project lifecycle.

Here are a few of the questions that really got our panelists talking:

• Where do you think most small cell deployments will take place in the future? Rural areas? Public venues? Enterprises?
• In the next three years, what types of deployments will grow? DAS? Neutral host systems? Small cells? Wi-Fi? Public safety?
• What’s the most critical phase of a small cell deployment? Data gathering? Design? Implementation? Maintenance?

With small cells being such a hot industry topic, everyone had great insights and the conversation was a great way to get our minds thinking about what the future of in-building and small cells might look like. It was also a great way to raise more questions to talk about during our end of day cocktail event later on.

And speaking of our end of day cocktail event…

By the time our rapid fire panel discussion ended, the day was coming to a close and you could tell everyone was looking forward to having that drink together and then set off into the San Jose sun. We wrapped up with some key takeaways about how iBwave can help to streamline in-building processes and drew the names for two free iBwave Certification sessions!

A special congratulations to our free iBwave Certification session winners:

• Julian Rondon from Eksoresa Consulting
• Eric Huang from Comba Telecom

And a  special thanks to all of our attendees:

AT&T Wireless, Comba Telecom, Communication Technology Services, Crown Castle, HetNet Wireless, HHBU, Moonblink Communications, Omega Wireless, Pinnacle Telecommunications Inc., PTI Solutions, Redwood Electric Group, Repeated Signals Solutions,Inc., Smartlink LLC, SoliD Brazil, Solid Technologies, SpiderCloud Wireless, SureSite Consulting Group, TE, University of California Santa Cruz, Westell Technologies, WSP, W-T Communication Design Group

Thanks San Jose, see you next time!

Just over a month ago iBwave returned to the largest city in South Africa, Johannesburg, for another one of our in-building seminars bringing Sylvain Pivot, Robert Froger and Peter Thalmeir with us.

We started the day early with breakfast and registration at the Gallagher Convention Centre, one of Africa’s largest conference and event venues – and with sprawling gardens surrounding the 30 hectares of property, certainly one of its most beautiful as well.

After breakfast, it was time to get started with an opening speech by the High Commission of Canada and a quick round of welcomes and introductions where we all started to get to know each other.

With introductions and welcomes quickly turning to anticipatory chatter, it was time to get down to business and start to talk about what we all came here for, in-building wireless!

First Up? Broadband and big buildings – future trends, challenges and best practices

We talked about the expected demand for mobile data in the coming years, the gap between supply and demand for indoor wireless and what we can do about it in the coming years. As most of us in the industry know, approximately 80% of all worldwide data connections initiate inside a building, but in-building coverage is currently only about 20% That’s definitely a large gap. And it gets even more complex when we start to look at all the different options coming into the market for providing indoor coverage – there’s DAS, small cells, Wi-Fi offload and carrier-grade Wi-Fi, HetNet,self-organizing networks (SON)…you get the idea.

Next up we focused on best practices when bringing broadband into large buildings using DAS.

To do this, we took the example of a stadium and made our way through the stadium wireless network lifecycle, looking at the challenges and best practices of the 6 phases – Survey & KPI Definition, 3D Modeling, Dimensioning & Planning, Detailed Engineering, Deploying & Commissioning and Operations & Maintenance .

Going through each of the six phases we took a closer look at the iBwave suite of products by demoing first how iBwave Mobile can be used to run more efficient surveys, and then how iBwave Design can be used to create 3D Models and complete the planning and design of the venue.

Here are some of the key takeaways from our morning discussion

• In-building wireless services are becoming a commodity
• To make ROI easier, planning , design and deployment processes need to evolve
• Communication and documentation are key to reducing deployment time and costs
• Industrialization of in-building processes will be the key to enabling scalability

Next up, we took a seat and Saroof Aungraheetaa, a Technical Solutions Manager with Kathrein South Africa took the stage to talk about challenges for in-building solutions and smart DAS systems. He then walked us through a real case study of a smart DAS system Kathrein had completed.

3 key Smart DAS points Kathrein left us with were

• They are multi-operator, multi-brand and multi-technology capable
• They are highly flexible compared to existing DAS systems
• They are very ‘green’ and save power

After such a full morning it was time to eat! And eat we did – on the lovely wooden Koi Deck at the Gallagher.

Once lunch was done we came back to kick-start our afternoon with what turned out to be one of the highlights of the day – a panel discussion to talk about in-building industry trends, challenges, standards and what the future will look like.

Industry experts participating in the panel discussion included:

Ignatius Fereira from Vodacom , Behula Shah from Kathrein South Africa , Steven Grobler from Radio Network Solutions (RNS), Sisek Ngxola from Cisco, Robert Krumm from Ruckus Wireless

Here are some of the questions the panelists discussed…

• Biggest challenges you deal with in IBS?
• The standards in place and how important they are?
• The future of our industry?

The discussion was a great way for all of us to hear what’s happening in the field and gave our attendees a chance to ask questions and interact with our expert panelists. It also opened up our minds to many questions that were continued to be discussed at the networking event later that night!

Our next topic was trends and procedures for bringing broadband into medium and small sized venues.

To do this we focused on the lifecycle of an in-building network through the planning, design and building and implementation phases. Highlighting our collaborative and cloud-based tool iBwave Unity, we went through each phase to demo how Unity can be used through the life cycle of a network to efficiently manage the planning and design – and used to archive and manage the design’s past deployment.

Next up, it was time to hand the stage back over to one of our guest speakers – Robert Krumm from Ruckus Wireless who presented us with “Small to Medium Venues Wi-Fi, DAS & Small Cells – OH MY!” Robert discussed with us trends currently driving the industry, Wi-Fi as a utility, how businesses more and more are realizing how they can profit from Wi-Fi and integrated business services, and the concepts around HotSpot 2.0 and making the Wi-Fi connection process as automatic and secure as cellular. Robert made some great points and you could tell the attendees had lots of questions to discuss!

And then before we knew it, time was up, closing remarks were given and our day together was over!

A special thanks to all the companies who attended the seminar

Kathrein South Africa, Vodacom South Africa, Dartcom, Mafiri Wireless, Intellitech Systems, Jasco Trading, RFS, RTX Solutions, AlanDick Africa, Rodmark & Co, Saab Grinktek Technologies, Level-X, Radio Network Solutions, Ilanga Technologies and National Association of ICT.

And a special congratulations to the winners of a free iBwave Certification!

• Kivan Maharaj and Kavi Garrib from Intellitech Systems
• Geoffrey Mofomme Malose from Mafiri Wireless

Thanks Johannesburg, see you next time!