London, UK, June 2015. Commercial success, innovation and real world deployments were recognized last night at the small cell industry event of the year.
The Small Cell Forum Small Cell Industry Awards 2015, held annually as part of the Small Cell World in London, recognize outstanding achievement within, and contributions to, the small cell industry.
The awards were open to the whole industry and judged independently of the Small Cell Forum by a panel of distinguished analysts, journalists and industry experts, chaired by Caroline Gabriel, Research Director, Maravedis Rethink.
Caroline said: “The awards categories were revised this year to provide as much focus on commercial success as on innovations – this reflects the growing maturity of the industry, in which a technology’s real world impact is as important as bright new ideas.”
“As a judge it is always difficult to pick winners and I want to congratulate everyone shortlisted. The large number of entries demonstrates the increasing breadth of the ecosystem surrounding small cells, particularly in areas such as management and planning tools, as well as services. The industry is in a strong position to deliver even more large-scale deployments worldwide.”
Now in its seventh year, the awards attracted entries from operators and vendors across the world. The entries received highlighted the market momentum and small cells’ strong penetration across home, urban, enterprise and rural & remote use cases.
Sue Monahan, CEO of the Small Cell Forum said: “This year’s winners show how operators and innovators are pushing the boundaries of technology to increase small cell deployment worldwide.
“These awards are a showcase of small cell success – delivering premium end-user experience to residential customers, major corporate businesses and providing greater access in remote areas. Congratulations to the winners and all the shortlisted companies on another incredible year.”
The awards rounded off a successful Small Cells World where the Forum announced the launch of Release 5.1, the first phase of its work on small cell virtualization. The Release identifies a clear opportunity to support an accelerated industry transition to virtualized small cells, with a virtualized FAPI (nFAPI) based on a MAC/PHY split.
The 2015 Small Cell Forum Small Cell Industry Award winners:
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Excellence in commercial deployment (RESIDENTIAL)
Fujitsu & KDDI Fujitsu partner to deliver VoLTE by deploying residential small cells
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Excellence in commercial deployment (ENTERPRISE)
SpiderCloud Wireless & Vodafone Vodafone UK Sure Signal Premium with SpiderCloud E-RAN
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Excellence in commercial deployment (URBAN)
SK Telecom SK Telecom’s smart HetNet solutions in urban deployments
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Excellence in commercial deployment (RURAL & REMOTE)
Parallel Wireless & EE Reimagining the economics of rural cellular deployments
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Small cell access point design and technology
Airspan Networks AirRAN: The virtual small cell
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Small cell network element design and technology
Quortus & Cisco Quortus and Cisco delivering industry’s first enterprise small cell VoLTE solution
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Small cell backhaul design and technology
Vodafone Urban small cell backhaul in Vodafone Netherlands
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Small cell tool design and technology (management, SON, planning)
Nokia Networks Nokia 3-D Geolocation: Maximizing the return on investment for small cells
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Small cell technology and deployment enablers (components, subsystems, software, and system integration)
JCDecaux Developing connectivity solutions with small cells
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Social impact – promoting small cells for social/economic/environmental development
ip.access & SiRRAN Small cells create advanced LTE testbeds for aspiring engineers worldwide
SPECIAL AWARDS
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Judges’ Choice
SK Telecom For pioneering work in developing & deploying innovative small cell architectures and advocating the HetNet approach.
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Individual contribution to Small Cell Forum activities
Kit Kilgour (ip.access) For work with the Security Task Force and long time valued support of Small Cell Forum activities.
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Chair’s Award (two awards)
Clare Somerville (Intel Corporation) For an outstanding contribution to the work of Small Cell Forum.
Aya Mukaikubo (SoftBank) For long term, dedicated commitment and contribution to Small Cell Forum activities.
For full details of the winners go to www.smallcellforum.org/events/awards/winners-2015
About the Small Cell Forum (SCF)
Small Cell Forum works to drive the wide-scale adoption of small cells and accelerate the delivery of integrated HetNets. We are not a standards organization but partner with organizations that inform and determine standards development. We are a carrier-led organization. This means our operator members establish requirements that drive the activities and outputs of our technical groups. Our track record speaks for itself: we have driven the standardization of key elements of small cell technology including Iuh, FAPI/SCAPI, SON, the small cell services API, TR‑069 evolution and the enhancement of the X2 interface. At the time of writing, Small Cell Forum has more than 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.
Small Cell Forum Release Program
The Small Cell Forum’s Release Program has now established the commercial and technical case for small cells in all key use cases and, as commercial deployments ramp up, operators are looking at how small cells fit into HetNets and the impact of new technology trends such as License Exempt Spectrum, SON and virtualization. The full roadmap can be viewed at SCF100.
Media contacts
Darren Willsher/Chris King
[email protected]
+44 208 408 8000