Also appoints a new CEO, new board and announces latest members

London, UK – 18th September 2012 – The Small Cell Forum, the independent industry and operator association that supports small cell deployment worldwide, has today appointed Gordon Mansfield, Executive Director – Small Cell Solutions & RAN Delivery at AT&T Mobility, as its new Chairman. In a change to the organization’s structure, the Chairman will be assisted by a full-time CEO, Graham Wright, who will handle the day-to-day management of the Forum’s activities.

Mansfield will oversee the continued evolution of the Forum following its name change from the Femto Forum which has led to growth in both membership and workload. Gordon currently leads AT&T’s small cell activities and has been closely involved in the Forum since 2008. He has been very active in the industry since joining the executive board in 2008 driving the development of small cell products and advocating the necessary capabilities for them to seamlessly work together with the macro environment. He succeeds Simon Saunders as Chairman, who is moving on after founding the Forum in 2007.

The Forum’s new CEO, Graham Wright, has previously held numerous senior roles at firms such as HP, Lucent, IBM and Intel. They both join at a time when small cell deployments are growing so rapidly that Informa predicts almost 90% of all base stations will be small cells by 2016.

The Forum has also announced its new Executive Board which includes representatives from: Airspan, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, InterDigital Communications LLC, ip.access, Mindspeed, NEC Europe, Nokia Siemens Networks, Qualcomm, Radisys, Softbank, Ubiquisys and Vodafone.

“Small cells are no longer a new mobile technology on the horizon, they are now an essential tool in an operator’s toolkit,” said Gordon Mansfield, the Small Cell Forum’s newly appointed Chairman. “I am honored to take over as Chair at a time when the Forum is rapidly growing in every sense – we now have more members and a greater workload covering more diverse areas that is all taking place in more teams. I would like to thank Simon Saunders for his five years of service over which time the Forum has not only grown enormously but also helped fundamentally change the mobile landscape.”

“Back in 2007 when the Femto Forum launched I could scarcely have imagined that the technology would have had such an impact on the mobile industry. What was once heresy has become orthodoxy. Over this time the Forum has grown immeasurably and the organizational structure must evolve to suit this. A full-time CEO and an operator Chairman puts the organization in line with most other major industry bodies and will facilitate future growth,” said Simon Saunders, Founding Chairman of the Small Cell Forum.

“Small cells are dramatically changing the shape of mobile networks and over the coming years this is only set to accelerate. The reason for this is simple – mobile networks need improved coverage, vastly increased capacity and new services. Small cells deliver these in a simple, open and cost effective manner. The Small Cell Forum has been central to the industry’s success to date so it is a huge honour to work alongside Gordon to help ensure this continues,” said Graham Wright, the Small Cell Forum’s new CEO.

The Small Cell Forum supports, promotes and helps drive the wide-scale adoption of small cell technologies to improve coverage, capacity and services delivered by mobile networks. It has in excess of 140 members including 67 operators representing more than 2.92 billion mobile subscribers – 47 per cent of the global total – as well as telecoms hardware and software vendors, content providers and innovative start-ups. The Forum also announced that since its name change in February 2012 the following new members have joined: Aepona, Airspan, Applied Communication Sciences, Cambridge Broadband Networks Limited, Cavium, Dapu Telecom, Iusacell, Lantiq, Nextivity, Purewave Networks, SRDP, SistelNetworks, Stoke, Symmetricom, Tango Networks, W.L. Gore, and Wistron NeWeb.

About The Small Cell Forum
The Small Cell Forum (www.smallcellforum.org), formerly known as the Femto Forum, 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 67 operators representing more than 2.92 billion mobile subscribers – 47 per cent of the global total – as well as telecoms hardware and software vendors, content providers and innovative start-ups.

Media Contacts
Small Cell Forum:
Oliver Chapman
[email protected]
+ 44 (0)7713 404571