Release Two provides an “all you need to know” guide to help operators deploy enterprise small cells
Small Cell World Summit, London – 4th June 2013 – The Small Cell Forum, the independent industry and operator association that supports small cell deployment worldwide, today announced early details of Release Two, its plan to accelerate enterprise small cell deployments, to be published in December 2013. These plans highlight the massive opportunities for operators to add significant value to their deployments through new services, as well as pinpointing the challenges and how they can be overcome.
The combination of enterprise small cells and network-based management applications allow operators to add significant value with exciting new features. These include: dedicated voice capacity, mobile unified communications, mobile call recording, local switching of voice traffic and context aware services, as well as the fast-developing field of network analytics. However there are also several key enterprise challenges that are significantly more complex than those found in residential femtocells. These include inter-cell interactions, larger coverage areas and increased user numbers typically with higher user mobility.
“The enterprise segment represents a huge opportunity for the mobile operator community, both in terms of increasing coverage but also with enterprise IT architects who are seeking to move all personal communications services on to mobile devices and “unwire” their organizations. However, to date the enterprise has largely proven hard to target effectively,” said Gordon Mansfield, Chairman of the Small Cell Forum. “Building on the solid foundation of Release One, our Enterprise Release will provide additional detail tailored to the segment to help operators unlock the considerable potential of this market.”
Enterprise small cells deliver improved coverage and capacity as well as providing a platform for advanced business applications and network analytics, which can be located either on-site or in the mobile network. Traditionally this market segment has been underserved, as options such as Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) have only been available to larger scale enterprises due to the considerable costs involved.
The Forum defines the enterprise space as generally indoor, premises-based and primarily driven by coverage but also including specific services and analytics. Market segments within enterprise include; Small Business/SOHO, Medium Enterprise/Mid-sized Office Buildings, Large Enterprise/Corporate Campus, Multi-Dwelling Unit, Retail Shop, Shopping Mall, Medical Facility/Hospital, Government/Municipal Building, Hotel and Underground Facilities.
The Enterprise themed Release Two will be published in December in Dallas at the Small Cells Americas followed by Release Three focused on urban small cells, which is scheduled for release at Mobile World Congress 2014. Each Small Cell Forum Release contains a guide for operators to deploy small cells in the various segments. Also included is detailed information on key areas such as market drivers, business case, security, radio technology, interference issues, standards, regulatory issues and a profile of recommended equipment interoperability for use in RFPs. Release One was developed by the complete Small Cell Forum membership and is freely available from the Small Cell Forum Release site, except the interoperability profile which is made available to all Small Cell Forum members – www.scf.io/
About the Small Cell Forum
The Small Cell Forum (www.smallcellforum.org), supports the wide-scale adoption of small cells. Small cells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum, are operator-managed and feature edge-based intelligence. They provide improved cellular coverage, capacity and applications for homes and enterprises as well as metropolitan and rural public spaces. They include technologies variously described as femtocells, picocells, microcells and metrocells. The Forum has in excess of 140 members including 68 operators representing more than 3 billion mobile subscribers – 46 per cent of the global total – as well as telecoms hardware and software vendors, content providers and innovative start-ups.