Operators, Specialist Vendors, Major OEMs and Silicon Companies Combine to Drive Small Cell Deployments Worldwide

London, UK – Wednesday 2nd October 2013 – The Small Cell Forum, the independent industry and operator association that supports small cell deployment worldwide, today announced the composition of its board for the forthcoming year. The new board comprises operators, small cell vendors, major OEMs and silicon companies, including: Airspan, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, ip.access, Mindspeed Technologies, NEC Europe ltd, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Qualcomm Inc, Radisys, Softbank, SpiderCloud Wireless, Sprint, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

In addition Gordon Mansfield, AVP Small Cell Solutions at AT&T, has been named as Chair for another year.

“The Small Cell Forum continues to go from strength to strength – adding members and helping to drive adoption of the technology around the world,” said Gordon Mansfield, Chair of the Small Cell Forum. “I am particularly impressed by the composition and balance of the board, equally representing all major segments of the industry, and look forward to the next twelve months as we continue to drive the industry forward through our release program.”

The Forum is currently developing Release Two, its guidebook for Enterprise small cell deployments. On schedule for publication in December 2013, Release Two will highlight the benefits of Small Cells in adding value to Enterprise Cellular networks and services, and shares essential deployment know-how. Operators adopting the information, architectures and guidance of the Small Cell Releases will be able to deploy and adapt small cells to their particular networks with speed and confidence.

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 150 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.