Gordon Mansfield, Chair of Small Cell Forum, explains Release Two: Enterprise

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Published on Tuesday, 03 December 2013 15:02

Written by David Chambers

Today, the Small Cell Forum announced their Release Two, publishing a series of more than 20 freely accessible new documents addressing all aspects of Enterprise Small Cells. This extensive volume of work is based on the requirements of the Forum's operator members to help address the challenges to enterprise small cell deployments.

We asked Gordon Mansfield, Chair of the Small Cell Forum, for some background about the release; who has been involved, who it's intended for and what the Forum plans to do next.

Small Cell Nordics 2013 – Event Report

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Published on Thursday, 28 November 2013 16:13

Written by David Chambers

This boutique conference event had a sharp focus on Enterprise Small Cells for the Nordic region, attracting some 40 delegates. These included several prominent small cell industry speakers including Chris Gilbert (formerly CEO of Ubiquisys), Tom Goldberg (CEO Cloudberry), Ronny Haraldsvik (CMO Spidercloud), alongside speakers from Ericsson, local operators and nearby research institute. I find the networking opportunities in such events can be very good, and you often learn more from those sidebar discussions than at some of the larger events. But if I had to choose, then the larger events tend to have wider impact and attract a broader audience.

Simon Brown, CEO ip.access, explains why Qualcomm was selected for their next generation small cells

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Published on Tuesday, 26 November 2013 15:10

Written by David Chambers

Small cell pioneers ip.access announced selection of Qualcomm's FSM chipset for their latest generation of 3G small cell products. We asked their CEO, Simon Brown, to explain the reasoning behind that choice and how it fits into their wider evolution plans for the business.

He explains how they adapted their software to become portable across multiple silicon platforms, reveals some unique benefits that Qualcomm bring, and sets the stage for their future small cell roadmap. He believes the small cell industry needs to talk more publicly about its success, pointing out that few of their 40 recent sales can be publicly quoted today.

Revisiting Free Space Optics: A low power, low cost approach for small cell backhaul

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Published on Thursday, 21 November 2013 16:47

Written by David Chambers

There are many technologies contending for use in outdoor Small Cell Backhaul today, and one thing is certain – none of them is suitable for all scenarios and the industry consensus is that a mix of different technologies will be needed. We've seen free space optics (using infra-red beams) being proposed before, but it's often dismissed out of hand. A Norwegian company is setting out to change that perception, with a novel approach to reduce cost and improve effectiveness.

ThinkSmallCell Interview with Rob Soni, CTO for Small Cells Alcatel-Lucent

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Published on Tuesday, 19 November 2013 17:09

Written by David Chambers

Rob Sobi, CTO of Small Cells for Alcatel-Lucent, explains the scope and purpose of their new joint initiative with Qualcomm including what both parties bring to the project. He also provided an update on their 3G metrocell program, with insights into some of the real-world deployment status and issues.

I confess that when I originally saw the Qualcom/Alcatel-Lucent announcement, I thought this meant that a completely new product range would be developed which superceded and replaced the existing Alcatel-Lucent small cell solution. That's not the case, with this new 9963 product targeting the indoor enterprise segment which Cisco, Spidercloud, ip.access and others have been focussing on. This will complement their existing 9363 indoor products.

Interview with Andy Odgers, CEO of Quortus, talking about Enterprise Small Cells

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Published on Thursday, 14 November 2013 16:30

Written by David Chambers

Andy Odgers founded Quortus in 2009 and has since organically grown the company to over 20 staff. Their software product provides core network functionality at the edge of the network, such as controlling voice traffic offloaded to an office network. His insights into how Enterprise and rural small cells might evolve have allowed him to architect and develop a software solution which bridges the gap between the network and Enterprise/local fixed networks. The need for this critical software component is now becoming more visible as the market begins to adopt these small cell applications.

Small Cells Global Congress 2013 – Event Report

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Published on Monday, 11 November 2013 19:18

Written by David Chambers

Informa's Small Cell Global Congress this year was somewhat of a smaller affair than Avren's Small Cell World Summit, with perhaps around 100 to 150 delegates overall. This will be the last year of this standalone format – from next year it will be combined with their Carrier Wi-Fi event. Spidercloud and Huawei were the only two radio equipment vendors who presented there. A wider range of complementary service and product vendors rounded out the exhibition area.

ThinkSmallCell Interview with Andy Sutton, Principal Network Architect at EE UK on their future small cell plans

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Published on Wednesday, 06 November 2013 15:21

Written by David Chambers

Andy is one of the key staff driving the engineering strategy at EE, the UK's largest mobile network. Here he explains why EE's network topology enables them to defer the inevitable expansion into small cell deployment, compares alternative future LTE network architectures and forecasts the likely timing and reasons for future small cell adoption.

Comparing the cost per bit of macrocells and small cells

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Published on Thursday, 31 October 2013 16:24

Written by David Chambers

A major business driver for adopting small cells is to address expected capacity constraints in mobile networks to meet rapidly rising traffic demand. ThinkSmallCell recently led a panel session at the Basestation Conference earlier this month, delving into the key factors that make the business case for small cells stack up. We've outlined some of the themes discussed and listed the key factors affecting investment choices.