Vodafone to spend more time hanging out at bus stops Vodafone has done a deal with poster giant JCDecaux to use posters sites and street furniture as sites for small cells. The project is based upon an experiment in Amsterdam that used 1800MHz and 2600MHz small cells. Unlike the EE rural project, the sites are not meshed. This isn't surprising since the focus of the project is …
Apart from the fact that it's not of much practical significance to anybody outside the operators' marketing departments, aren't the densely trafficked environments where you might want these things just the areas where you don't have loads of unused spectrum to lavish on carrier aggregation? This sounds like a very sensible way to increase capacity, by increasing the number of cells rather than whining about needing ever more of the spectrum already in use by other people. That is meant to be the point of cellular networks, after all - servicing many users with limited spectrum.
If the cell is on top of the advertising board or bus stop they'll be a good 2 metres from the flesh sacks at street level. The E/M field strength from the base station decays in proportion to the inverse square of the distance.
The further a Base Station is from the handset, the harder the handset has to work (i.e. greater EIRP) to communicate with the Base Station and the handset will be closer to your head than the base station ever will be!
IOW a very small low power base station nearer to you may well mean you're subjected to a weaker E/M field than a Base Station far away.
[And don't forget your battery will last longer if the cellular radio in the handset can ramp down it's EIRP].
Here you go. The future
You walk up to a Bus Stop. This is one that has one of these cells. You Mobile is on Vodafone.
The LCD/LED display on the Shelter suddenly changes to
'Hello Mr Bloggs. Taking the Bus today?
Lewis Autos have really goos deals on [redacted] cars at the moment'
or worse
'Hell Mr Blogs. Late night last night? The 07:15 went... at 07:15. Got a Hangover?
etc'
or
toy have your other half with you.
Hello Mr Bloggs. Those flowers you purchased at Tesco Online were delivered to 123 The Avenue at 19:00. Do you want to order some chocolates today?'
Targetted advertising at it best or worst depending upon your POV.
Am I glad that my phone has all location services disabled.
> Am I glad that my phone has all location services disabled.
I'll assume you typed that bit in a hurry! ;-) (Hint: your phone has connected to the site in the bus shelter; and they know where the bus shelter is.)
Targeted advertising: Hello Mr Jones.... Only 5 more months until you get your driving licence back... why not start an account with AAAAAA Taxis
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