A SuperCell is a technique for providing Internet services to rural areas across the globe. It is designed to increase significantly mobile data coverage range and capacity. It uses towers up to 250 meters (820 feet) high with high-gain and narrow beamwidth antennas. This makes a huge difference in coverage. A 36-sector SuperCell base station on a 250-meter tower provides a coverage area 65 times larger than a standard rural macro base station on a 30-meter (98-foot) tower.
It’s estimated that one SuperCell could replace 15 to 25 traditional macro cells or hundreds of small cells. It’s also a cost-effective alternative to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet services such as Starlink.
SuperCells can be deployed at more than one-third lower overall cost of ownership than a network of macro cells. They can further take advantage of existing broadcast towers. It also offers a single site rather than the multiple sites needed for macrocells. That means only a single data backhaul needs to be built and only one power source. The downside is that it is potentially a single point of failure for a large geographic coverage area.
