December 11, 2009

Where Communication in Seconds Matters the Most. E-RAN for Hospitals

The growing usage and penetration of high-speed mobile wireless services for both voice and data have created new challenges and opportunities for mobile operators, hospitals and consumers. The requirement for always-on, high-speed communications both indoors and out has created a capacity dilemma in the densely populated areas where hospitals are located, such as campuses and high-rise office buildings in metropolitan areas. Today‘s broadband subscribers include doctors, staff, visitors, students and patients. Whether you can control it or not, the subscribers will make use of all available bandwidth for communication, information access or entertainment. 3G customers can consume upwards of 5Gb per month and with 60% of that usage taking place indoors, it has become business critical to manage capacity more intelligently.

This capacity dilemma is not easily solved by adding more macro cell sites outside to blast inside‘ considering the expense and inefficiency of deployment in this way.

Attempts to provide wireless coverage inside for voice and data has been cost prohibitive for mobile operators thus far. Wi-Fi, while offering a low-cost wireless data access solution indoors, suffers from poor voice quality, device availability and issues with macro to AP and AP to AP handover for reliable cellular calls.

Hospitals and healthcare providers have for years faced an uphill battle with regards to reliable voice and data coverage inside buildings. Whether a hospital has a staff of 250 or 25,000, the challenges of operating and maintaining several overlapping IT systems can be as much as 40% of the hospitals operating budget (1). IT infrastructure CapEx and Opex continue to rise, primarily for wireless data and in-building voice, and the complexities of interoperating wired with wireless IP networks is not becoming any easier. IT organizations are also limited by access to qualified personnel. Hospital administrators need to reduce cost and complexities and streamline an organization of on-the-go staff and personnel within buildings where time is of the essence and IT systems are viewed as life critical.

Most hospitals today rely on a combination of desktop phones, mobile devices, overhead paging, pagers and two-way radios to connect to essential staff and support personnel. In many cases, personnel and essential staff are unaware of each others‘ presence, location or work/off work status.

• Voice: Each office or station is wired for desktop voice at a CapEx of $300 to $800 depending on a variety of parameters with monthly per person OpEx ranging from $25 to $100.
• Pager system: As an overlap to the desktop voice system, an in-building voice and/or data pagers system is used to communicate one-to-one or one-to-many messages. The fixed cost of such systems could cost as much as $250 per employee.
• Dedicated in-building mobile voice network: Due to a lack of reliable voice coverage inside buildings, whether licensed, unlicensed or wired, an overlap system with costly handheld devices is often in place to reach essential doctor and support staff. The fixed cost per employee equipped can range from $250 to $450.
• Wi-Fi network: Every 75-100 feet, an 802.11 abgn system is deployed to provide data access for mobile carts used for patient data access and information sharing. WiFi can be used for VoIP, although a greater number of access points and specific devices are required. The benefit of Wi-Fi is that it can carry the VoIP traffic of the pager system, if properly installed. As with most Wi-Fi systems, security is important and the network must distinguish QoS by application and user access privileges for employees vis-à-vis visitors. The Wi-Fi network, if built for 100% coverage, can cost as much as $100 per SqFt covered.
• Wired IP network: For the purposes of this discussion, we will not include cost of the existing IP system but rather leverage the existing Ethernet infrastructure.
• The people network: For the most part, the word of mouth or pager system is the go-to network to reach essential staff and personnel in case of emergency when the communication network fails to reach a person.
• Mobile network: Everyone has a device but coverage is not reliable and call costs can be high.

Reaching a person in seconds can be a matter of life and death and in some cases a hospital will have in place four to five voice, data or voice/data networks, all with the same objective – to reach a critical person within seconds. These facilities are most often constructed with the utmost reliable concrete structure supported by towers between each wing adhering to a myriad of building codes. Such environments make it difficult, or in some cases impossible, for outdoor cellular signals to penetrate the buildings and provide reliable voice or data communication access to thousands of people located in densely populated buildings on campuses or busy metropolitan areas. With the emergence of 3G mobile broadband and the mass-uptake of 3G iPhones, Blackberries and other user devices, the in-building coverage issue has become even more unsettling to IT departments and mobile operators.

SpiderCloud Wireless Proposes a New Approach to Deployment Within Buildings to Offer Reliable 3G Coverage and Capacity

SpiderCloud Wireless is a mobile network infrastructure provider of a new in-building wireless system which utilizes licensed spectrum. SpiderCloud Wireless makes use of a services node architectural approach with central control of radio nodes. With the SpiderCloud SmartCloud system, mobile operators have a transition from coverage networks to capacity networks as we enter into the era of capacity. SpiderCloud‘s system offers mobile operators a significant advantage by enabling in-building wireless services for healthcare institutions with a purpose-built mobile network system.

Opportunity for mobile operators:
 

• Most hospitals would prefer not to manage mobile devices (IT is currently the point of contact when things go wrong with devices)
• Hospital IT management is interested in voice integration and the ability to offer location-based services (secure access, first response, etc) using a mobile network-managed solution and would welcome a ‘managed service‘ offered by an operator to avoid adding more sub-systems for voice communication.
• If the hospital could access reliable voice and data coverage using a mobile network inside, the hospital would consider subsidizing access for all employees and entertain new revenue opportunities for visitors to the hospital (while leveraging existing backhaul).
• The hospital‘s IT team wants predictability and reliability and a flat monthly or yearly fee for unlimited voice/data consumption within their zone. Welcome mobility as a managed service.
• The hospital will entertain revenue sharing opportunities to offer broadband voice and data access for students and visitors.
• Hospitals are interested in location-based services and the ability to create campus social network applications with 3rd parties

SpiderCloud Wireless SmartCloud™ E-RAN enables hospitals to overcome today‘s existing challenges of reliable cellular voice and broadband data coverage. The SmartCloud system saves hospitals unnecessary costs and complexities associated with FMC solutions, the capital and operational expenditures required to add new macro sites outside, and relieves capacity stress to the macro cellular network. When presented with the SpiderCloud Wireless proposition, hospitals surveyed were in favor of managed 3G network services to improve reliability of coverage for life critical communication, reduce cost of internal IT operations, and improve network efficiencies.

In turn, the deployment of a SpiderCloud Wireless SmartCloud™ services node and radio node system presents mobile operators with long-term revenue opportunities and a short return of investment time frame.

(1) Source: Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA)

Ronny A. Haraldsvik
Vice President of Marketing