London, UK, 11th August 2014. The Small Cell Forum, the independent industry and operator association that supports small cell deployment worldwide, has today elected Vodafone’s Alan Law as its new Chair.
Alan Law, previously the Small Cell Forum’s Vice-Chair, Europe has played an active role in forging the direction of the Forum for over six years. During this time, he has also chaired the LTE Special Interest Group, the Operator Group and represented Vodafone Group on the Executive Board. He will officially take over from outgoing Chair Gordon Mansfield on October 1st 2014.
Day-to-day management of the Forum’s activities will continue to be handled by CEO Sue Monahan, with Alan responsible for chairing and setting the agenda for the Forum’s Executive Board and driving consensus amongst member organizations on topics of relevance to the advancement of the industry. He will also be a key evangelist for the Forum, addressing member needs and concerns, speaking at public events and acting as spokesperson for the Forum on key issues.
“Small cell deployments continue apace and are changing the very shape of mobile networks,” said Alan Law, the Small Cell Forum’s Chair elect. “I am honoured to take over as Chair at a time when the Forum is doing such fantastic work, from the hugely successful Plugfests to the ongoing Release Program currently focussing on rural and remote deployments and virtualization. I would like to thank Gordon Mansfield who has been an inspirational Chair for the last 24 months and really helped the industry to become more creative, more disciplined and more focussed.”
Sue Monahan, CEO, Small Cell Forum said, “With more than 98% of operators believing small cells are critical to the future success of their businesses and more than 8.4 million small cells shipped worldwide, the industry is in a very strong position. The Small Cell Forum has been central to the industry’s success to date but there is plenty of work left to do and no time for complacency. The importance of having the insights of a leading global operator as Chair can’t be underestimated, with Alan’s experience and knowledge making him the perfect candidate to take over the mantle and continue the great work started by Gordon and his predecessors.”
In conjunction with the election of the new Chair, the Forum also announces its new Executive Board which includes representatives from: AT&T, SoftBank Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone Group, Airspan Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Intel, ip.access, NEC Europe Ltd, Nokia, SpiderCloud Wireless, Qualcomm,
and Texas Instruments.
About the Small Cell Forum (SCF)
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.
About the Release Program
Launched in February 2013 the Small Cell Forum Release Program provides a comprehensive set of technical and business documents to help deploy small cells in the home, enterprise, rural and urban areas. Each release includes detailed documents on key areas such as market drivers, business case, technology information including standards, operator lessons, and a regulatory overview.
The Release Program is driven by the knowledge that more than 98% of operators think small cells are essential to their future. Whilst existing deployments have centred on almost 50 pioneering large operators in developed markets, the Release Program aims to help every type of operator from across the globe to roll out small cells.
In 2015, the Forum will publish Release Five, themed around small cells for Rural & Remote deployments. View the roadmap here http://scf.io/doc/100
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