Interview with Prof. Jie Zhang, Co-Founder of Ranplan

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Published on Wednesday, 16 July 2014 17:52

Written by David Chambers

What challenges face radio planners when creating HetNets using a variety of new radio technologies, a mix of small and large products and a range of automated software tools? We spoke with Prof. Jie Zhang, Co-Founder of Ranplan and Chair in Wireless Systems at Sheffield University to capture his insights into the future of small cell network planning.

He discusses "outside-in" vs "inside-out" approaches, the subtle differences for planning between 3G and LTE, and how RF planning also applies to wireless backhaul.

Todd Mersch of Radisys outlines timescales for Small Cell market adoption

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Published on Tuesday, 08 July 2014 16:27

Written by David Chambers

It seems almost every year that the forecasts for widespread small cell take-up shift back another 12 months, although we shouldn't forget there are already over 10 million (mostly residential) small cells deployed to date.

We asked Todd Mersch, General Manager for Software and Solutions at Radisys, if he is particularly optimistic about LTE small cells and if he feels they will evolve alongside Carrier Wi-Fi, with SON playing an important part.

Interview with Arthur Giftakis, VP Engineering and Network Operations, Towerstream

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Published on Tuesday, 01 July 2014 16:31

Written by David Chambers

It's been a year since we spoke with Arthur Giftakis, VP Engineering and Network Operations at Towerstream. This U.S. business (through its HetNets Tower Corp subsidiary) owns a variety of urban sites and operates a similar business model to the much larger tower companies such as American Tower – with the exception that HetNets is able to provide backhaul through its fixed wireless assets.

We wanted to find out whether the pace of Urban Small Cell rollout is matching industry forecasts, what (if any) is holding back progress and how the Urban Small Cell scene will evolve.

Nick Johnson, CTO ip.access, reveals more details on their Presence Small Cells

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Published on Thursday, 26 June 2014 16:49

Written by David Chambers

Have Small Cell pioneers ip.access gone completely crazy! They want you to install their small cells without connecting them to the network or carrying any voice/data traffic. We asked CTO Nick Johnson to explain why anyone would want to do this, uncovering a radically different approach that promises to liberate a huge amount of value from the mobile operators' radio networks.

Small Cell Forum Release Program Workshop June 2014

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Published on Tuesday, 24 June 2014 17:00

Written by David Chambers

The Small Cell Forum meets alongside several Small Cell conferences, providing a time and place for all the key participants to meet up face to face. Much of its work in between is done by conference call and email collaboration. The Forum opened up its doors last week at an all comers workshop meeting to review and discuss its release program. I'd estimate there were about 50 attendees, mostly a mix of Forum members and a number of analysts. We report on their progress to date and future plans.

Small Cells World Summit 2014 Event Report

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Published on Tuesday, 17 June 2014 16:42

Written by David Chambers

Larger volumes, increased delay, congestion, longer queues forming... perhaps Small Cell World Summit was trying to give a taste of possible future network problems when delegates first turned up early for this year's annual industry jamboree. In fact it was down to a temporary power outage at an unfortunate time, temporarily preventing the front desk from issuing badges. Quickly solved, the rest of the event ran very smoothly.

ThinkSmallCell was heavily involved – chairing two morning sessions, presenting and on the judging panel for the Small Cell Forum awards, together with many meetings – which delayed our reporting of the event. But it's also become a more complex and comprehensive marketplace, making it worthwhile to take a few days to cogitate and prioritise the key points rather than just regurgitate all the press releases.

Unlocking the Enterprise for Small Cells – a new White Paper

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Published on Monday, 09 June 2014 16:52

Written by David Chambers

In-building cellular service quality appears to have been noticeably degrading over the last year. This is apparent from an increase in dropped calls, generally poor voice connections (especially uplink), intermittent indoor data connectivity, with text messages - even incoming calls - not getting through.

CIOs, property owners, hotel managers and other Enterprise users now seek cost effective solutions that would deliver reliable in-building cellular service – many would even be willing to pay for or contribute to the system installation. Cisco makes the bold claim that the incremental cost of adding cellular service to a new Enterprise Wi-Fi deployment can be as low as 20%. This reinforces how cost effective small cells can be, but are network operators grasping the opportunity quickly enough? Should Enterprises take matters into their own hands, self-installing cellular equipment and simply asking the operators to adopt and commission it? What tools and processes are needed and what practical implications arise?

In a brand new ThinkSmallCell White Paper, we ask what it would take to achieve "The Enterprise - Unlocked".

Mobile Network Performance Management 2014 - Event Report

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Published on Wednesday, 04 June 2014 18:33

Written by David Chambers

This niche event (approx 50 delegates, majority from European operators) has quite a different feel to some of the larger conferences that attract bigger marketing budgets and carefully crafted messaging. I find you can sometimes get good insights into what's really going on "at the coal face", and what planning/optimisation engineers are really thinking. It seems this topic is gaining importance while it wrestles with more complex network architectures, more demanding customers and increasing cost pressures.

ThinkSmallCell chaired Day 2 of the event but we've summarised the key themes and highlights from both days.

Ronny Haraldsvik, CMO Spidercloud, talks about dual-band Enterprise Small Cells

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Published on Tuesday, 03 June 2014 17:27

Written by David Chambers

Spidercloud are now shipping their multi-mode dual-band 3G/LTE Enterprise Small Cell radio node, after extensive trials with Tier 1 operators. This new solution has been short listed for an award at next week's Small Cell World Summit in London. We asked Ronny Haraldsvik, their CMO, to provide some of the background, explain how the system works and reveal some of the challenges they had to overcome.