How we provided communication at the largest airports

Meeting point of mobile operator with roaming and home subscribers

In Russia, 6 hub airports stand out from the rest. For many years, this six prevails in the ranking of the busiest airports in our country. Most of the air passenger traffic falls on them. They concentrate in themselves about 70% of the total passenger traffic. These are: Domodedovo (33.04 million pas. Per year), Sheremetyevo (31.57 million pas. Per year), Pulkovo (14.26 million pas. Per year), Vnukovo (12.73 million pas. per year), Koltsovo (4.53 million pas. per year) and Tolmachevo (3.96 million pas. per year).


Geographical location of the largest airports in Russia
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At these hub airports, we upgraded the mobile network. I was responsible for the technical and informational parts of this project.

Airport specifics

Mobile communication at airports is needed not to get lost in numerous human flows in the terminals, to have the opportunity to talk with relatives and friends or discuss business matters with colleagues, and also read posts on the Internet, upload video reports on social networks, watch movies, download photos, listen music and radio; play online games during flight hours.

A characteristic feature of the largest airports is that mobile traffic is constantly growing, evolving, which means this issue is in our attention. At the above six largest airports there is a significant passenger traffic, which is largely due to the population of the cities where they are located. Moscow has a population of 12.1 million people, St. Petersburg has a population of 5.1 million people, Ekaterinburg has a population of 1.4 million people, and Novosibirsk has a population of 1.5 million people. In addition, such airports are nodal, concentrating in itself the traffic of passenger traffic. Being at a sufficient distance from each other, they form the international and domestic air transport communication of the macroregions of our country.

Hub airports are special airports that dock and transfer transit passengers between flights from other airports. These transport hubs received another, shorter name in the public transport industry - hubs. Schedules of departures and arrivals in hubs, as a rule, are carefully chosen by airlines in order to minimize the waiting time for flights by passengers.


The fastest way to find loved ones in the airport

In fairness, it is worth noting that passenger traffic is formed not so much by airports, they only serve and support it, as by airlines connecting their flights in air harbors. The question of “landing” of passenger traffic in an airport is always a difficult dialogue between airports and airlines, as it is very difficult to “lure” air carriers to one or another air harbor and it is necessary to agree on mutual preferences. It is airlines that form passenger traffic, and passengers depend on airport occupancy.

Recently, a decentralized principle of load distribution on route networks of regional airports began to develop in our country. By introducing various regulatory measures to subsidize air travel, the situation in the segment of regional travel of passengers has changed. Passenger traffic began to be redistributed and consolidated at smaller regional airports, which only contributes to the confident development of this type of public transport in our country as a whole. Over the past ten years, the transport industry has done a great deal of work to modernize and improve the infrastructure of air ports. The regional route network is growing all the time, new destinations are rolling out, modern passenger terminals are emerging, the capacities of the material and technical base are expanding, the flight intensity is increasing, which only opens up new horizons for the development of Russian airports.

The peculiarity of the recent modernization of the hub airports is that the passenger terminals in them began to grow and unite into a single terminal complex. This is done to ensure that a full-fledged infrastructure of the hub develops at key airports, and passenger traffic circulates freely between the terminals during the transfer of transit passengers on connecting flights. It is expected that this will save resources and time between flights of airlines, when their density increases like the largest world-class hubs.


Everyday fuss of passengers waiting for check-in at the airport terminal area

Practically at all key airports in the country, following the growth of passenger traffic, traffic began to grow on our mobile networks, both from home and roaming subscribers. And that is especially characteristic - mobile data traffic increased significantly. Passenger traffic in hubs creates a fairly large load on the mobile network. We had to respond to these changes in the transport industry, and thus have time to modernize and strengthen our coverage at hub airports to provide passengers with 4G / 3G / 2G communication technologies. Gradually, the themes of building mobile networks and increasing passenger traffic at airports were closely intertwined with us in the company, and all the activities at the junction of these two areas were separated into the project.

Coverage planning

The difference between small regional airports in comparison with large hubs is that mobile communication to cover small terminal buildings is provided by standard street methods. Base station equipment is installed at small regional airports at nearby technical buildings or even hotels, thus creating external coverage outside and also capturing parking zones in front of the terminals and runways behind the terminals. Sometimes, to increase the network capacity, for regional airports, we also built second stations on the street. Everything is pretty standard, as with urban positions. But for large airport hubs, such typical methods did not work.


Ensuring passenger comfort is the most important service tasks of the airport and cellular operator.

Back in the days of 2G networks, we already had external street coverage at hub airports, like other regional airports, and this was enough to provide voice call services. Then 3G technologies appeared, and we added 3G base stations in street positions around hubs. However, if near the passenger terminals of these airports it was possible to make full use of the Internet service 3G, then there was clearly not enough subscriber speeds in the buildings themselves. Internet speeds in the depths of large terminals essentially "subsided", and smartphones and tablets often fell out of the 2G network and remained there. And then 4G mobile technologies burst into our lives, and the 4G street coverage in key hub terminals was almost not visible.

Alas, the latest trends in high-tech architecture at hub airports have contributed to the specifics of the structures: there is too much iron. The 4G signal made its way poorly. This is due to the fact that with an increase in carrier frequencies, the penetrating power of mobile communication signals usually decreases proportionally. Therefore, it was necessary to make the internal coverage of the terminals.


Waiting for a mobile Internet transplant

Usually, to perform such tasks of strengthening the coverage in buildings, either a radio-repeater is installed that retransmits the signal of the street base station, or a micro base station, or a femto access point. But in our case with hubs:

1. a radiorepiter would not cover large areas of large terminals,
2. the micro base station would not have enough power and the required number of used antennas,
3. several femtocells would have to be combined into a common system with their own characteristics, and still their capacity would not be enough for a large number of subscribers, since this is a niche solution used for small offices.

To carry out our mobile communications project at hub airports, an option was chosen based on the construction of an additional position in the terminals with the installation of an internal base station and a distributed antenna system. The goal was to maximize mobile coverage of all floors and junctions of hub terminals, and above all the terminal areas, international and domestic airlines. The outcome of the choice was associated with an internal antenna, and its essence is as follows.

Distributed antenna system is a high-frequency system based on the principle of uniform “rolling out” of the base station power on all floors of the building. The main thing in such an antenna is not to lose a single decibel of power in all frequency bands of 4G / 3G / 2G technologies. The distributed antenna system itself consists of a "thousand" low-power omnidirectional (less often panel) antennas and resembles a "garland" on a Christmas tree, which must be carefully and carefully hung on the floors of a building so that from all these intricacies of feeders, power dividers and radiators are uniform all around " lighting".


Diagram of using a distributed antenna system on the example of a business center

However, the “garlands” themselves can also be used differently to create an internal coating on objects. They are characteristically divided into two types: passive and active. And since we have used both types at hub airports in different passenger terminals, it’s worth a little to characterize these systems and show our experience of using them.

1. A passive distributed antenna system is a system based on a coaxial high-frequency cable (feeder), power dividers, directional couplers, and low-power omnidirectional antennas. Antenna system has a higher power loss in the cable than the active systems. There is a risk that on a large object the antenna may not be enough for the entire building when floor-by-floor wiring the “branches” of the passive system. Any alterations are quite complex, and in case of “branches” failures it is harder to find the source of the signal power loss. Passive antenna system is quite difficult to build up in case of further expansion of the object. The installation of feeder tracks is laborious and time consuming, and this is not always convenient. However, this technical solution is much cheaper than active systems, and it is often sufficient to create an internal coating. In addition, the passive antenna system is more easily operated and monitored through the equipment of the main manufacturers of base stations.

2. Active distributed antenna system is a system consisting of active spaced radio modules installed in the antenna-feeder path, the main task of which is to create an additional signal gain of the base station. These amplifying radio modules are also called active system repeaters. The head unit of the system is installed in the hardware near the base station. It converts the radio emission from the base station into an optical signal and transmits it to the remote radio modules of the system, which, in turn, convert it back to radio emission and output it to the antennas via coaxial cables. Such antenna systems are easier to design, easy to configure and expand, and intermediate sections of optical cables do not impose a restriction on the propagation of the signal inside the building. In addition, the optical cable is thinner than a coaxial cable, and it is easier to install it during installation. And due to the fact that the reinforcing elements of the system are active, it is relatively easy to find and locate breakages in the “branches” of the antenna system. The active system, as a rule, has its own monitoring system of its “branches”. It is also well scalable in the event of further expansion of the system in the building. In general, there are many advantages. But there is a significant drawback - it is a very high price. Therefore, at large sites, we sometimes use mixed-type antenna systems, where the “branches” of passive coaxial sections are suspended in the architecture of the active antenna system.


Hardware in Domodedovo (from left to right): 3G / 2G base station, a rack with six combined 3G / 2G active headsets (2100/1800 MHz), and a rack with four active 4G headsets (2600 MHz)

An important additional advantage of an active system is that it can be easily used when implementing a multi-operator solution, since it is initially based on the principle of “one antenna for all”. Due to the use of high-frequency signals from several base stations in the head unit at the input of the adder system of several base stations, several cellular operators can be connected to the antenna at once. Such implementation of the technical solution allows not to use a large number of the same equipment of several operators on one site.

Thus, when designing the internal coverage in the terminals of hub airports, distributed antenna systems, both passive and active, were used. As noted above, all other technical solutions for hubs could not give us the desired result in terms of capacity and coverage. If we take up the construction of a good internal coating, then it should immediately be done at a high level.

As a result, having foreseen practically everything that was possible in the project, we proceeded to construction. About how we deployed in these hubs these "non-child" designs and will be discussed further.

Construction and configuration

Speaking about the implementation of the internal coverage in the hubs, it should be noted that in each specific terminal we observed our individual features with the installation of antenna-feeder systems and with the integration of base stations. After all, the construction of internal communication in such transport enterprises is not a continuous matter, but an exclusive one. But at the hubs under review there were similar moments, and they will be discussed further. So, we everywhere observed in the hubs the same characteristic signs, associated mainly with the punctuality of the requirements of airports. Installation with our contractors was necessary to be coordinated, in addition to the engineering services of airports, with representatives of law enforcement agencies: with border guards, with customs officers, with the FSB and with the Ministry of Interior. All these approvals left their mark on the speed of deployment of our distributed antenna systems.


Fragment of planning of the distributed antenna system of one of the floors of terminal D in Sheremetyevo

Judge for yourself. The hub terminals were in commercial operation and were relatively tightly packed with passengers, so the development of truly “Stakhanov” mobile communication projects could not even be dreamed of. So, in one of the large terminals, the airport gave us temporary “windows” for mounting elements of the antenna system for only 4 hours a day, from one o'clock in the morning until five in the morning, when there were less passengers in the terminal than during the day. During this time, it was necessary to have time to decompose with components and tools, carry out the installation of the next section of the cable route, test, and then fold, get out, and ... "evaporate." In fact, due to preparatory operations, even less time was spent on a clean installation of the antenna system, which only delayed our progress. But such was the order of affairs in these regime objects, and we tried to follow it as much as possible, believing that one fine day we would decorate all the floors of the terminals with “garlands”.

We installed the equipment of 4G / 3G / 2G internal base stations in technical premises specially allocated to us by airports and converted into hardware rooms. As a rule, airports provided operators with common premises for telecom equipment, which is why we all live together on sites. Fortunately, there was no problem with the power supply in the hardware for the base stations.

Physical restrictions on the implementation of antenna systems were imposed by the buildings themselves. We had to agree in advance and very carefully with airports on possible locations of feeder routes so as not to disturb the interior decoration of the terminals. We installed high-frequency cables on all floors of the terminals so that they were almost imperceptible to the passengers' eyes. Speaking of terminal internal antennas, we also “hung them out” on the principle of “not spoiling” our terminals' appearance. Installed in buildings, they are now virtually invisible nowhere, since they are hidden from the eyes as much as possible at the request of airports.


An example of an internal omnidirectional antenna at a mall facility

The preparation of communication channels for base stations at airports has passed with us mostly without any insurmountable difficulties. For all internal stations, either their own fiber-optic communication lines were laid, or airport lines were leased. The width of the channel strip for Internet services is enough for everyone. And in the case of further growth of the packet load on the mobile network, these channels can be expanded - the stock is provided.

To create a “seamless” coverage inside and outside the terminals, we configured transitions between the indoor and outdoor sectors of the base stations, and launched the built 4G / 3G / 2G networks. It was also required to measure the realized coverage under the subscriber traffic. It was important to make an assessment of what we did with the internal coverage for all technologies, what happens to the continuity of voice service of subscribers, and what the speed of mobile data transfer turned out to be. All places of the airports where the passengers spend their time, both the airport terminal zones and the zones of domestic and international airlines, were interested. For this purpose, measuring works were organized, which were previously coordinated with airport security services. After receiving approvals, we went into various areas of the terminals already “with escort”.

Performing interior measurements in large buildings has its own specifics. In contrast to measurements of the street coverage of a mobile network, which are performed while sitting in a car or on a train, having a laptop in hand, measurements inside buildings are more labor-intensive and are performed by feet. In the terminals, we equipped only the most necessary measuring equipment and, in order not to embarrass passengers of flights and airport workers, step by step, floor by floor, hour by hour, to collect invaluable information with backpacks with equipment behind us, we avoided all zones and transitions in buildings where access was allowed.

A characteristic feature of measurements inside the terminals was that the radio coverage characteristics were recorded on maps not using GPS receivers. Alas, it is possible to become attached to GPS only on street measurements, and in buildings it is almost impossible to catch a satellite signal due to metal constructions. It was necessary to look in advance for the layouts of the airport terminals of interest, and to “tie” measurements in place. And sometimes it was not possible to find any plans for the terminals, and then I had to take photographs of fire evacuation plans with measurement smartphones, “overlay” photos on the “measurement” screens as a movement map, and thus “tie” the measurements to the coverage points in the building. Not the most convenient way from the point of view of further processing of measurement results, but on sensitive sites this is often the best,what could be invented in the absence of GPS.


The results of measurements of the internal coverage of the 4G network in terminal A at Vnukovo. The

measurements in the project revealed minor discrepancies in the parameters of the internal coverage. So, at one of the airports, it turned out that the sectors of the street base station “penetrated” very deeply through the windows into the terminal, underestimating the 4G / 3G Internet speed to subscribers. In order to eliminate the “rewrite”, it was necessary to adjust the street coverage of the sectors, “bending” the antennas of the external base station so that within the terminal the smartphones and tablets of subscribers confidently “transplanted” to the internal network. Setting up an invisible "edge" of mobile transitions between street and domestic sectors is always a subtle and creative work.

According to the results of the construction work, it was possible to state that the designed layouts for internal positions at key terminals of airports did not let us down. We only had to tighten the power parameters a little or expand the communication lines, to optimize something on the network by coverage or capacity, but in general, what was intended to be implemented at the key terminals was achieved.

results

The results obtained at each airport can now be told separately.

Domodedovo Airport (Moscow). This is the first airport in the official Russian ranking of the busiest airports on the passenger traffic serviced. Domodedovo is a single passenger terminal, divided inside into sections.


Domodedovo, a common single terminal (Moscow)

Domodedovo is the largest airport in Russia and in Eastern Europe in terms of passenger traffic. Flights from Domodedovo are carried out in 229 directions, 85 of which are unique to the Moscow air hub. The airport is one of two "champions" in our country, who has planned the construction of a third runway and has begun preparatory operations.

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Street coverage in the airport zone is provided by 4 base stations. We implemented internal coverage in the Centralized Terminal together with other operators. The network is based on an internal base station and an active antenna system. In the Centralized Terminal, a full coverage of networks of all 4G / 3G / 2G bands has been launched.

According to the results of construction and measurements, our average data transfer rate on the territory of the main Centralized Terminal in Pulkovo was 20.71 Mbit / s.

Vnukovo Airport (Moscow). This is the fourth airport in the official Russian ranking of the busiest airports in terms of passenger traffic services. Vnukovo is an airport of four passenger terminals: A, B, D, and Vnukovo-3 (business).


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Koltsovo is a modern and rapidly developing airport. More than 40 Russian and foreign partner airlines connect the airport with more than 100 cities of the world. The timely modernization of the main terminals A and B in Koltsovo allowed the airport to become today one of the most important transfer hubs for trips of the population of the Urals and residents of the neighboring regions. In the near future, the airport plans to begin a new stage of modernization, after which Koltsovo is expected to increase its capacity by switching over to itself a large number of streams of passengers traveling from nearby regions by international flights through Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Street coverage in the airport zone is provided by 2 base stations. According to the analysis of the combined terminals A and B of Koltsovo Airport, where almost all passenger traffic is concentrated, it was decided that for the implementation of the coverage it would be enough for us to install an internal base station with a passive distributed antenna system. At the moment, we have launched our own internal coverage for 3G / 2G technologies at the airport. Antenna system consists of couplers, power dividers and a set of omnidirectional antennas, and the total length of the passive system feeder in the combined terminals is about 800 m. Currently, the question of upgrading the antenna system and deploying full 4G coverage in the terminal complex is under consideration.

According to the results of construction and measurements, our average data transfer rate in the territory of the complex from the combined terminals A and B in Koltsovo was 3.92 Mbit / s.

Airport Tolmachevo (Novosibirsk). This is the sixth airport in the official Russian ranking of the busiest airports in terms of passenger traffic services. Tolmachevo is currently an airport of two passenger terminals: A and B.


Tolmachevo, Terminals A and B (Novosibirsk)

Tolmachevo is the largest airport and transit hub of Siberia, serving the most important directions between Europe and Asia. Sustainable development of the airport causes the fact that it is located in the center of business activity of the Siberian region and concentrates the passenger traffic from the eastern part of our country. In fact, Tolmachevo is a hub of the "East" direction. Of the two terminals of the airport, the updated terminal A is the key. Another terminal B has not yet been rebuilt architecturally, its large-scale modernization and expansion is underway. At the airport, it is planned to build a middle part between the two terminals A and B, on the site of which the transition gallery is now built. It is expected that Tolmachevo, like the rest of the largest regional "brothers", will soon become a single terminal complex of terminals A and B.

Street coverage in the airport zone is provided by 2 base stations. According to the results of the analysis of the terminal A, it was determined that in order to enhance coverage in Tolmachevo, it was enough for us to install an internal base station with a passive distributed antenna system. At the moment we have launched our own internal 3G / 2G coverage in terminal A. The issue of expansion in the terminal A of the antenna system to support 4G technology is currently undergoing an analysis. As for terminal B, it continues to be reconstructed and expanded. In these changing architectural conditions, it is still a bit early to talk about planning and construction in the terminal In the internal distributed antenna system 4G / 3G / 2G.

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So, in December 2010, an incident occurred at the largest Moscow airports, with serious consequences. In the region there was a strong "freezing rain". The nature cyclone was unique and had never been observed in the region on such a large scale before. Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed in the three key hubs of the region, and passengers flying for New Year's holidays from all over our country turned out to be “hostages” of a long wait situation at airports. The Moscow interchange hub was almost “paralyzed” by the ice, and the total time spent waiting for hours for departures in terms reached about 40 hours.


Passengers during the “freezing rain” in December 2010 in Domodedovo

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When the elements receded and all the runways were finally cleared of ice, our company initiated processes to check and further modernize the equipment of the base stations at the airports. The received “baptism” of the elements was a considerable test for our mobile networks of airports, but in general, the base stations coped with a large load and were tested for “strength”. As for the airports themselves, closer to the last passing days of 2010, the hubs could “digest” all the surging passenger traffic and seated all the waiting passengers on their planes.

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