To start, we will be placing the Outdoor metro cell inside near a window and next to your network gear to confirm a set of preliminary checks. This validates that things are working before the outdoor metro cell is deployed to its permanent location where it may be difficult to access.

Connect the power terminal to the positive and negative leads coming from your power supply. The colors may differ depending on your shipment, look at the label on the power supply to determine + and – wires. Connect per the guide image below.

Open the weather sealed door using an allen wrench to expose the power and ethernet connections for the radio.

Connect an outdoor rated ethernet cable to the port labeled “DATA/MGMT ETH”. Connect the Power Terminal to the power port. Screws on the power terminal should be facing the inside of the compartment. Depending on the location of your nearest power outlet, you may need to extend the power cables. The length of this cable should be long enough to reach the permanent location where you want to deploy the metro cell. Ethernet cables may be up to 100m/330ft.

Here is an example: Outdoor Rated Cable

Connect the other end of the ethernet cable to the port labeled eNB1 the FreedomFi Gateway. Two additional CBRS small cells are supported on the eNB2 and eNB3 ports.

For now, don’t worry about the location of the outdoor metro cell. We will be moving the outdoor metro cell to a permanent location at a later point, but we want to connect the cable inside to make sure things are working.

Visit your small cell dashboard by utilizing the Official Helium Dashboard and select the gateway this radio is currently attached to. From here, scroll down to this gateways “Attached Radios” and verify you can see your new radio listed.

Note: It is normal for Spectrum Status & On Air statuses to be “Trying” prior to your radio registration submission and approval.

The antennas that are utilized for the Outdoor metro cell must be verified & approved to work with our SAS. The best way to ensure no issues is to simply utilize a preverified antenna that already exists within our system, please see below the list of already pre-approved antennas.

Approved Antennas:

Any antenna that is not a part of this list, is not approved and will need to go through the verification and addition process to our system. We are happy to assist in these situations and ask for you to please generate a ticket with our support team here.

However please do note, that new antenna reviews can take up to ~2-3 months before being approved and officially added to the list of pre-approved antennas.

To start, make sure you select a good place for the Outdoor metro cell. Obstructions will decrease coverage. CBRS signals have less range than LoRa. Similar to Wi-Fi they can be weakened or blocked by obstacles like walls, trees, and buildings. To capture the most data you can, you want your small cell to point towards a populated area, a place with a lot of people and phones e.g. a park, a playground, an outdoor cafe/coffee shop.

For the purpose of improved coverage area, it is recommended to mount your outdoor small cell as high up as reasonably possible. This often means on a roof, or near the roof line of a building. Roof mounting examples for a home or small business:

The CPI process requires the following:

To enable the outdoor metro cell, you’ll need to complete the CPI flow and get approval. The process starts with registering the small cell location.

To register the outdoor small cell, you’ll need the following information along with photos to prove it.

You will be required to submit the height of the installation and a photo to verify it. Here are some ideas on how to get the height:

Take a photo that shows the radio and the ground. Sample Verification photo:

Azimuth is a fancy name for the compass direction in which the center of the antenna is pointing. Please utilize the free NOAA Mobile Magnetic Declination calculator for this measurement.

The sample picture is showing azimuth angle of 176 degree (0 Declination.

The elevation angle is a fancy name for “is it pointing up or down from level.” The reference point is the middle of the antenna. To ensure consistency across all applications, we ask that you please utilize the following free app to measure & record your elevation accurately.

Bubble Level

Steps to collect this photo:

The sample image is showing 3 degrees of down-tilt angle using the Bubble Level app.

To verify the antenna model used, take a picture of the product badge on the unit. This should show the manufacturer and model number. Example photos below.

To verify the antenna installation, take a picture of the overall antenna in it is mounted location. Example photos below.

Now that you have the small cell information and photos, you will need to submit them for CPI approval. Access your small cell dashboard by heading to the Helium Dashboard:

Once you get the CPI approval notification, your small cell should be ready to go. To check, navigate to the small cell Dashboard and verify that the registration status is approved, and the statuses are all Green.