How I built a network in Astrakhan for 9 years

High water and base station container

Good morning! My name is Ilya, in 2002 I started as a base station maintenance engineer (then there were as many as 14 pieces on 10 sites), in 2004 I became the technical director of the branch, and now, from 2013, I have been heading Beeline throughout the region .


This is a typical suburb relief. There is no place to nest here, therefore the kestrel, the falcon, steppe eagles and buzzards-kurgannikas and smaller birds are very often found between high-voltage insulators.
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Nature

Let's start with nature. The region halves the Volga, and for several months a year it overflows, spreading across the steppe. There are thousands of lakes and islands in the delta, which affects both the availability of the BS and the difficulties with power supply and high-quality transport channels.

In the summer we have a very strong heat (southern region of the Russian Federation), which requires good cooling of the equipment. We also have a lot of dust and midges tightly clogging the filters of air systems. And under cool containers, steppe animals like mice, gophers, and sometimes snakes love to wait out the day.

Heat

As soon as the power is turned off at the station, it warms up very quickly inside the container to +80. The first can not stand batteries. Then fails and more expensive equipment. Therefore, we are now installing free-cooling systems for such positions.


Inside one of the sites. This is a brick house, not a container.

Freeking in our region is practically the same as the open container door. +40 is not at all suitable for data centers, but it looks great in contrast with +80 without access from outside air. At the same time, in the season, the midges free-cooling filters for 2-3 days of work are compacted tightly with biomass, so at this time they are an emergency reserve. Base station "Sazaniy angle" is a vivid example.


Base station "Sazany angle".

Wind

The wind in Astrakhan always blows, and quite strongly. The steppe is as flat as a table, and the only heights are engineering structures like houses, bridges, and so on. Sometimes there is a particularly strong flow (they give a hurricane warning). He breaks everything that is fixed not thoroughly. The region is not the highest 3rd class wind. And although the design takes into account the weather conditions, we make every effort during the installation and operation of the BS to avoid emergency situations due to strong winds.

Also, the wind affects the sensation of temperature by the human body. In winter, due to strong wind and high humidity, ours is 5 as -15 in Moscow.


On days with temperatures below –20, we stop trips except urgent emergency ones. The black cable is the feeder path.

Animals

Usually the BS container is the coolest place in the steppe. Therefore, under it almost always live mouse or viper. To approach the equipment with extreme caution.

Another feature is that there shouldn't be anything brilliant at base stations. Crows never stop. You can eat, sleep, go for a walk, relax, and they will hollow a brilliant piece in the hope of dragging it away. Day after day.


Here is an example of colleagues. On the roof with our sectors, birds peck isolation, and it is gradually replaced by galvanizing.

Geography

Volga region and coverage map

As you can see, the Volga divides both the city and the region into two parts. People live on both sides of the river. A relay radio link (RRL) punches well through it, but it has band limits. Taking into account the peculiarities of bogging down the floodplain, often from one radio relay node to another, the direct distance can be several kilometers, but you can get there by car over a bridge or a pontoon ferry some 300 kilometers upstream almost a day.

There are positions that can be reached only by boat. Of course, engineers undergo an additional course of behavior on the water as part of safety.


And here is the boat itself.


Blinov. This spring and most of the summer can only be reached by boat.

The population in the region is about a million, about half of it lives in the city of Astrakhan, there is a very high concentration of people in the north of the region (up to 10–12% of subscribers), the areas between these points are well inhabited. Considering this, it is worth understanding that before a failing BS or a power-off site, we can reach an average of 6-7 hours. Therefore, almost from the very beginning of the development of the network, we have made the structure of the transport network ring. The result was three large RRL-rings. The narrowest point is almost on the border of the region - 60 Mbit / s, which is enough for local residents to confidently surf 3G at speeds around megabits.


BS "Lotos", a typical representative of the BS in two hops from the ring

There is little population on the seashore, therefore, as a rule, where there is no power supply, there are no people either. Therefore, there is no exotics like BS with solar panels in the region. If the place is interesting, there, most likely, a hostel and normal industrial input. There is one station that has been operating from diesel for several years, but the control point of Rosmorport, and their diesel. At the entrance to the main bank of the Volga-Caspian canal there are always large vessels waiting for permits or water level.


The station on the island of artificial, which is powered by diesel


So grows in the lower reaches of the lotus.

Optics

We realized the importance of high-quality transport channels from the very beginning, so we paid great attention to the construction of fiber optic links. At the moment, about 750 kilometers are in operation, of which about 150 fiber city fiber lines, and about 200 broadband (FttB). Now we are putting optics on the left side of the Volga to the cities of Kharabali, Akhtubinsk and Znamensk, calling at almost all stations, reserving this branch through Volgograd. It should provide our stations with fast and high-quality transport, and our subscribers with reliable and fast service.

In Astrakhan itself, most stations are connected via fiber optic links, which gives us the opportunity to provide our customers with access to packet data networks at high speeds.

We have the opportunity to earn in the market for the sale of services to local operators

Relief

The steppe is very smooth and even. This is good for signal propagation. When I was engaged in the development of the network, almost immediately we decided to build the “backbone” of the network on our own high-rise structures. All of them are located in the center of settlements. Thanks to these BS in the “sweetest” places of the region, we now have no difficulties with the further development of the network. And the network is deployed in each locality through its own high-rise buildings, which have become powerful transport hubs.


Artificial Island Tower

In the city, most of our positions are either at production sites or in areas with dense buildings. There we put low-power antennas in the center of the houses - at cafes, substations, and so on. If you get up higher and cover a large area, then the subscribers will become much more affordable channel capacity, plus the difficulty will begin with interference and signal quality. Our position was somewhat more expensive in the case at the beginning of work, but now, again, it has paid off for one hundred percent. And all because radio planning in our company is traditionally strong.


Typical relief of the city, the very center, shopping center "Fair". In residential areas of the house higher and more tightly

Building

When I started as an engineer, we had, as I said, 10 sites and 14 base stations. We thought we covered the whole city. The infrastructure of the regional operator “Smarts” was approximately adequate in volume. A bit later, Megafon came to the city, and a couple of years later MTS bought a small operator with licenses and also began its work.

There was a case. On the other side of the Volga - in the Trusovsky district - the RRL was leaving. We calculated that we need a four-point (RRL on 4 E stream), and sent eight-stream equipment from Moscow. It was clear that 16 megabits to this area is just some kind of prohibitive band, and the project itself was not cheap. For comparison, today a link to 10 Gbit / s goes there.

Gradually, the construction went into normal mode, taking into account local specifics, of course. If interested, show a separate post non-standard installation.


Installation of a pillar on BS "Military town"

"Corbina"

When Corbina came to Astrakhan, the company was just in the process of negotiating a purchase, Golden Telecom owned 50% of the shares. Therefore, we immediately and quickly agreed that they take our highway (and do not build their own), plus “fit” into our own positions. As a result, Corbina had a complete transport network (then rented). And excellent places for broadband nodes in our containers, where there is temperature, and protection from external factors, and security, and good service. After purchasing the Corbina, we got a network without unnecessary elements - everything is simple, efficient, and immediately ready for maintenance. Handsomely!

Therefore, now we are leading in this segment in the city. Technically, we can provide subscribers with up to 100 Mbps, which is done at certain rates for individuals and some for legal entities.

Given the number and geography of broadband connections, the city is fully ready for P2P networks on Wi-Fi devices. We even considered “on napkins” such a project, it would really be very interesting. But you know, everything that is not indoor - permissions on frequencies are needed.

Now the main task of broadband access is to avoid old technologies that were at the core of Corbina’s networks. In particular, we want to move away from L2TP / VPN in the future in order to offer a channel without a tunnel. Work is already underway.

LTE

We were in the top five of VimpelCom for launching LTE, first in test and then in commercial operation.


Commissioning of the first LTE station in Astrakhan

Now in most parts of the region 3G is available, and in the city - LTE. However, there are not too many devices supporting 4G.

Borders with Volgograd, Kalmykia and Kazakhstan

Because of the flat terrain on the border with the Volgograd region, our subscribers often "cling" to the base stations of their colleagues, and their subscribers to ours. This is especially true of hunters and farmers. Therefore, we made a fairly wide band where there are “neutral” stations. That is, the subscriber continues to talk, not knowing that he is in another area.

On the border with Kalmykia, a similar band is implemented. There is a peculiarity: on Tsagan-Aman, 10 kilometers of the “ledge” of the river belong to Kalmykia, and the local BS is connected to the Elista switchboard. Given the roving-free strip, many Astrakhans are passing through there, not even knowing that they have been to the neighboring republic.

There is, of course, the need for special projects. For example, a large facility is being built right near the border of Kalmykia (on their side). By agreement, we organized communication there using a mobile station, which distributes around quite Astrakhan 2G, sufficient for conversations, checking mail and social networks.

There are no people on the border with Kazakhstan, so the coverage here is spot. The only exception is the customs points, where both our connection and our fairly fast Internet are available. It should be noted that the border with Kazakhstan is not the same as the border with, for example, China. The former inhabitants of the USSR live there, who often work on the territory of Russia and vice versa.

Mumra

This is an object in Mumra. There is a tower, on which the standard light fence and the standard red lights. We checked this remote position once in two months and several times in a row noticed that red lampshades were removed from the lamps. Lamps are intact, but there are no caps. Changed, of course, but came again - they are not there again.


Caps immediately after installation

Talked to the locals. The dialogue turned out like this:
“So this, granddaughters, is a tall tower.”
- So what?
- It is convenient.
- And what are the lights disappearing, don't you know?
- Eh?
- Lanterns say.
- Aah! .. So this, when you walk from the seaside, it is like a beacon.
- Yeah. And without caps brighter, huh? And you take them off.
- Not only shoot, granddaughter. We are still there to ensure that everything works, we chase away other people, here we’re changing light bulbs. Lighthouse same.