LTE small cells create opportunity for new mobile network entrant in the UK

Written by David Chambers

Published on Thursday, 16 May 2013

Something interesting is happening here in the UK, which may be a forerunner of what could happen elsewhere. BT, the encumbent fixed network operator, bought some 2.6GHz spectrum in the LTE auction earlier this year. Having initially said they had no plans to launch their own retail mobile network, they are now changing their approach and announced they may do so within the next 12 months.

We look at the context of how the commercial makeup of mobile network operators are evolving and are now becoming three distinct components. Is this a trend that will continue and be adopted more widely, or is BT's move an indication of consolidation to come?

ThinkSmallCell Interview with Gordon Mansfield, Chairmain Small Cell Forum, May 2013

Written by David Chambers

Published on Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Gordon Mansfield, AVP – Small Cell Solutions at AT&T, has been Chairman of the Small Cell Forum since last September, and we caught up with him before Small Cell World Summit to hear how the Forum has evolved under his new leadership. He explained their Release Program, reveals where the strongest areas of interest are, discusses some terminology confusion and explains how the membership has evolved.

This shows a considerable move of focus from earlier residential femtocells (which aren't going away) onto both Enterprise and so-called Public Access small cells (Metrocells and Picocells).

Small Cell Chipset Vendor Landscape 2013

Written by David Chambers

Published on Tuesday, 07 May 2013

A lot of investment has gone into development of specialist silicon for small cells in recent years. In this article, we've taken a step back and reviewed the landscape, talked to many of the major players, and developed our view of what's going on. It might be controversial for some, but should help navigate through the plethora of press releases and announcements.

The emerging opportunity for 42GHz wireless small cell backhaul

Written by David Chambers

Published on Thursday, 02 May 2013

Metrocells will need wireless backhaul with sufficient data throughput to deliver the high speeds which 3.5G and LTE are capable of. It's also important that the total capacity of that wireless backhaul within a geographic area matches or exceeds that of the metrocells themselves.

The key tradeoffs are the cost (and availability) of suitable spectrum, the cost of the equipment itself and the ease of deployment and maintenance. The relatively unused 42GHz sits between the licence free 60GHz and the more heavily utilized 28GHz bands, attracting some spectrum licence fees while offering lower costs by using a Point-to-Multipoint topology.

ThinkSmallCell Interview with Randy Cox, Head of Small Cell Product Management, Nokia-Siemens Networks

Written by David Chambers

Published on Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Nokia-Siemens Networks has consolidated all their small cell solutions into a single product group. Randy Cox, who heads up their Small Cell product management, highlights what's holding back the small cell market today, identifies changing requirements for small cells and explains his view of where public Wi-Fi fits into the picture.

Transport Networks for Mobile Operators conference including Small Cells

Written by David Chambers

Published on Thursday, 25 April 2013

London was again home to the 15th annual Transport Networks for Mobile Operators (TNMO) conference. As with quite a few events these days, there was a strong theme of small cells which were mentioned in the majority of talks. Also in common with other conferences, I found a wide range of quality of content – from the outstanding to the truly banal. New takeaways for me related to small cells included the work being done by the MEF to determine the characteristics of Ethernet required for LTE small cell backhaul, various offers of Small Cell Hosting and the (mostly private) comments from operators about the reality of Metrocell rollouts.

We've also recorded a short (3 minute) vox-pop style video from the chairmen and several speakers during the event to give you a sample of the atmosphere.

Small Cell deployment opens up opportunities for new flavour of network sub-contractors

Written by David Chambers

Published on Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Alongside a strong interest in public access small cell products themselves, we've also seen plenty of attention for wireless backhaul solutions. But who's going to provide the specialist expertise to glue this together on the gorund - designing and choosing the best sites, the most appropriate backhaul option, then install and maintain them? We asked Peter Jennings, CTO at MLL Telecom, one of the UK's largest backhaul network providers, to share his view of where these skills will fit – a range of services that may soon be needed from others by network operators worldwide.

Picking the right frequency for wireless Metrocell backhaul

Written by David Chambers

Published on Thursday, 18 April 2013

Most metrocells will be deployed for capacity reasons rather that just to improve coverage. In the medium term, each unit may handle 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi concurrently. For that reason, fairly high capacity backhaul will be preferred – at least 100Mbps. Ideally that would be fibre, but in many cases that is impractical. Wireless backhaul comes with many choices; what are the tradeoffs between capacity, cost and feasibility?

Radisys report lessons learnt from recent LTE small cell network deployments

Written by David Chambers

Published on Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Todd Mersch, Director of Software and Solutions at Radisys, is seeing LTE small cell technology becoming deployed on a wider scale. He reports back some of the key learning points from real world field experience, shares which small cell roadmap features are most sought after and believes the number of small cell vendors is likely to continue to increase.