Vodaphone Looks to Boost Capacity at Cell Towers

Vodafone, the U.K-based telecom giant is working with the computer science department of Imperial College in London to test whether small data centers placed directly at mobile cell towers can boost data services to data-hungry consumers, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Currently, smartphones communicate with carrier networks’ radio towers through radio signal, which is then sent to the carriers’ data server centers. These are often located far away from the cell towers. With increasing data-heavy applications like video streaming happening on smartphones, data quality is a competitive factor, so distance between cell towers and data centers could be an important aspect of a carrier’s infrastructure. The move comes as operators look for creative engineering solutions to deal with growing data traffic. Bringing data centers closer to the mobile tower, or base station, could allow for accommodation of bigger and faster traffic,” according to The Wall Street Journal.