Release Three was, by any standards, a wide-ranging and important document. But we knew even then that there was much more to be said about urban small cell networks.

Welcome to Release Four.

This is still a relatively new area for small cell deployment. It’s also a very exciting one, promising much in terms of enhanced services and revenue generation. But it’s also an area that asks a lot of questions of both operators and vendors, many of them highly technical. Hence Release Four, much of which expands and enhances the technical work begun in Release Three on urban small cell rollout.

The areas addressed in this release will be vital to the long-term success of urban small cell networks.  Content management, for instance, will be pivotal in managing traffic growth. Location technologies will not only enhance revenue generation and usage but also make full use of some inherent advantages of small cells. X2 interoperability will play a part in multi-vendor HetNets. New approaches to network architecture will need to be found. The backhaul challenge has many possible solutions, all of which need to be examined.

All this and more is included in the technical content that makes up Release Four. However this Release also offers a real-world context to the essential technical detail: it includes not only an enhanced overview of the urban release program but a series of case studies.

Because urban small cell networks are no longer on the drawing board. They are already in streets, terminals, businesses and public venues in areas as diverse as Beijing Airport, the streets of Seoul and Walt Disney World.

Release Three and Release Four now offer important and valuable insights into possibly the most exciting development in mobile telecommunications of recent years. And it’s still happening.  Here’s the story — so far www.scf.io