A popular tourist destination in Spain, the Balearic Islands welcome an average of 20 million visitors from around the world each year. However, the growing demand for broadband from tourists meant that the overall service experience was degraded due to weak network coverage, slow data transmission speeds, and intense signal interference. This led IB-RED to require an upgrade of its existing island-based networks, which include WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies running on the unlicensed 5.8 GHz band.
Huawei's eLTE solution supports a coverage radius of 15–25 kilometers (using a single eNodeB) and a maximum downstream data rate of up to 100 Mbps to cover the sparsely populated and dispersed Balearic Islands. This ultra-long-range coverage and high downstream data rate are achieved by Huawei's next-generation DBS3900 distributed base station and high-performance customer premises equipment (CPE) terminals, and are supported by high-gain, 4-transmit-4-receive (4T4R) antennas. Furthermore, a compact evolved packet core (EPC) solution is used to integrate all core network element (NE) functions into a single unit, reducing network deployment complexity and helping to save on upfront technology investments. Huawei's Western European technical support center also provides operation and maintenance support for the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless network and subsequent deployment.
To date, IB-RED has successfully deployed an eLTE network on the islands of Mallorca, Ibiza and Cabrera, and plans to launch the eLTE network on the rest of the Balearic Islands - Menorca and Formentera - in the future.
