TMN Small Cells Market Update 2014

Making sense of the world’s

mobile networks

THE MOBILE NETWORK // SMALL CELLS MARKET UPDATE /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Q&As with EE,

AT&T //

A TMN PUBLICATION IN ASSOCIATION WITH iBwave

Small Cells

Talking

// SMALL CELLS 2014

Market makers ////////

////////////// Mapping the

Small Cells Network

The Mobile Network // www.the-mobile-network.com

MAXIMISE SPECTRUM UTILISATION

CAN YOUR NETWORK BOOST THE BOTTOM-LINE?

LTE TDD READY SMALL CELLSOLUTION

with Radisys small cell solutionsWith the deployment of small cells, the emergence of HetNet and improvements in spectral efficiency, the mobile broadband dream of providing a wireline-like experience to wireless users is becoming a reality.

Implementing LTE TDD can lead to a new way of capacity addition and optimised bandwidth allocation – increasing quality of experience and coverage and enabling operators to monetise mobile broadband.

Radisys is first to the market with LTE-TDD solutions, provides an accelerated TDD Roadmap and is actively supporting customers for TDD trials and deployments.

RADISYS HEADQUARTERS:5435 NE Dawson Creek Drive | Hillsboro, OR 97124 USA

503-615-1100 | Fax 503-615-1121 | Toll-Free: 800-950-0044www.radisys.com | [email protected]

©2014 Radisys Corporation.

OPERATORS SAY…

BUT… THEY SEE KEY

BARRIERS

SO..HOW MUCH IS A SMALL CELL

TO DEPLOY?

DO THE ANALYSTS AGREE?

ON T

HE U

P SI

DE…

REDUCED COST DATADELIVERY

WIFI INTEGRATION

60% operators backhaul availability

55% site acquisition

40% network provisioning*

32% monetisation

LOGISTICS BACKHAUL

& TCO

STILL TOP 3 WORRIES FOR OPERATORS†

WH

Y AD

OPT

A SM

ALL

CELL

STR

ATEG

Y?

CAPACITY INCREASE

NEW APPS & SERVICES

60%

55%

50%

50%

BETWEEN $6,000 TO OVER $60,000 PER DEPLOYMENT!

DEPENDING ON TYPE OF CELL, LOCATION AND BACKHAUL**

FEMTOCELL SHIPMENTS INCREASE TENFOLD 3.75 million in 2013 to 37.45 million in 2018‡

The installed base of small cells set to grow from almost 11 MILLION TODAY TO 92 MILLION IN 2016. 86% of them femtocells.º

BY 2017, three small cells per macro base station in urban areas. Today, 750,000 MACRO BASE STATIONS deployed worldwide in metro areas. That equals 2.25 OPEN ACCESS URBAN SMALL CELLS BY 2017 (if the number of macro base stations remained constant).º

AND

WHO

HAS

DEP

LOYE

D?

44RESIDENTIAL

26ENTERPRISE

56 OPERATORSDEPLOYED

17 IN OWN NETWORKS**

= 7.4 MILLION

SMALL CELLS

IN FIELD OCT 2013

642,000 SMALL CELLSSHIPPED IN 2013

GROWTH IN 2013 70%

UP 143% FROM 2012OVER 50% 3G

350%‡

86%

3G/LTE UP

FEMTOCELLS BY 2016

3G/LTE multimode shipments to INCREASE 350% IN 2014‡

*Maravedis-Rethink > †ExelixisNet & Xona Partners survey > ‡ABI Research > **iGR > º Ericsson and Informa T&M

WH

O’S

WIN

NIN

G?

100

100

80

80

60

60

INNOVATION

IMPL

EMEN

TATI

ON

40

4020 20

ABI RESEACH SMALL CELLS AND CARRIER WI-FI

COMPETITIVE ASSESSMENT

TOPVENDORS

500,000 public access small cells in live service worldwide by 2015.

Market Infographic sponsor: iBwave

14 TMN MARKET UPDATE

Editorial Director: Keith DyerEmail: [email protected]

WELCOME TO THE SMALL CELLS MARKET UPDATE 2014

This Market Update marks the progress of a market that continues to change rapidly.

Our main feature tracks the key product and operator launches in 2013-2014: a useful resource for keeping track of this year’s market makers.

Our updated Mapping The Small Cells Network pull-out builds on last year’s successful launch - there are more companies listed, new sectors added. A handy visual guide to who does what in small cells.

Want to hear how top operators are integrating small cells into their networks? I commend Paul Coffey’s interview to you – a good insight into how EE is planning to weave small cells into the strategic development of its network. If you want to get a handle on operator thinking on small cells, this is a good place to start.

There’s also insight from AT&T into the requirement for its own in-house development of an automated planning tool.

Finally, the Small Cell Forum has a new CEO – hear what her priorities are, how she sees the organisation developing, and how the Forum is intent on bringing down barriers to small cell deployments.

Hi!

06 EE: We need authorities and vendors to understand us.

08 AT&T: We developed our own automatic resource planning software.

09 Small Cell Forum: We are helping operators deploy.

10 Who has been doing what in small cells.

14 Picture this: Small cells market infographic.

FOLD-OUT MAP: Mapping the Small Cells Network - company listings by sector.

Commercial Director: Shahid RamzanEmail: [email protected]

TMN Market Update is published by TMN Communications Ltd.© 2014 TMN Communications Ltd.

HEAD TO HEAD

MARKET MAKERS

INFOGRAPHIC

INTERVIEW

THE SMALL CELLS MARKET UPDATE

POSTERmapping thesmall cellsnetwork

04 iBwave: Small cells need a change of plan.

WHAT USE CASES ARE YOU SEEING DRIVING DEMAND FOR SMALL CELLS?

Small cells might have been targeted for residential and small business uses at the beginning, but the technology has matured and they have become a critical component in indoor urban and enterprise networks. Indeed, market analysts agree that enterprise small cells represent the fastest growing segment of the small cell market and are expected to make up half of the global market by 2016. This is not surprising when you consider that an estimated 80% of the voice and data traffic occurs inside buildings, while most of the networks are outdoors.

Mario Bouchard, President and CEO at iBwave, says small cell deployments require innovative design and planning processes and tools.

WHAT DEMANDS ARE YOU SEEING, AS A PROVIDER OF INDOOR WIRELESS SOLUTIONS, FOR TOOLS SPECIFICALLY TARGETED AT SMALL CELL DEPLOYMENTS?

The rapid adoption of smart phones and devices, the emergence of cloud-based services and the demand for ubiquitous mobile broadband mean that, to meet growing coverage and capacity demands, operators and integrators around the world are becoming increasingly involved in small cell deployments.

They are under tremendous pressure to keep up with the high-volume of upcoming

projects but the conventional processes that are used for large DAS infrastructures (which require upfront design, planning work, large capital investment and can take months to deploy) are not suited for dense small cells deployments. So we have seen a demand for new tools that are affordable, easy to use and that can help streamline the end-to-end process, thereby reducing deployment costs and installation time.

PLANNING THE SMALL CELL REVOLUTION

4 TMN MARKET UPDATE

WHAT CHANGES DO SMALL CELLS BRING TO THE PLANNING AND DESIGN PROCESS?

Small cell deployment dynamics are radically different from macro-cellular networks. Contrary to DAS systems which tend to be engineering-driven and entail a lengthy approval process, small cell requirements revolve around cost management and ease of planning and deployment. As such, the planning and design process requires a new approach that is less technically challenging, and that makes it easier, faster and more cost-effective for non-RF personnel to collect important information during site surveys, access and share design information and create as-built documentation during the installation and optimisation phases. In addition, if small cells are poised to solve many of the challenges facing the wireless industry, they bring their own set of challenges (scale of deployments, backhaul connectivity, convergence of technologies, interference mitigation…). This also drives the need for processes that can simplify and automate indoor design and planning activities.

WHAT CAPABILITIES HAS IBWAVE DEVELOPED TO MEET THESE CHANGING REQUIREMENTS?

Based on its close discussion with clients and small cell equipment vendors, the company has developed innovative products in anticipation of the important role that small cells will occupy within the wireless ecosystem.

IBWAVE MOBILE PLANNER, the latest product of that innovation effort, is the only field-based planning tool that uses mobile devices and enables IT technicians and non-RF personnel to perform small cell indoor designs.

Users can work on scaled floor plans and site parameters, select and place small cells from our publicly available database

WWW.IBWAVE.COM

PLANNING THE SMALL CELL REVOLUTION

of 1,300 small cell elements, and visualise predicted network coverage and data rate directly on site. As important as the actual design process, the tool provides full process documentation (with photos and videos as well as annotations, cabling, and additional notes, all geo-located), enabling the users to keep track of their small cell deployment projects and share them, via iBwave cloud with their ecosystem. The app also offers integrated RF collection and visibility on inter-cell interference, further reducing the need for additional equipment or tools to plan small cell networks.

All of this drastically reduces the project lifecycle, number of site visits and overall costs. iBwave Mobile Planner has received widespread praise from customers worldwide and is set to become a key business enabler in the deployment of indoor small cell networks and create new market opportunities.

Mobile Planner changes the paradigm for indoor small cells planning

5 TMN MARKET UPDATE

PAUL COFFEY / HEAD OF STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT, EE

With the continued drive for data demand and the desire to provide our customers with the highest quality voice and data services, small cells form a key component in our armoury to deliver additional coverage and capacity to our network and customers. Whilst we are committed to small cells, they will form part of a holistic heterogeneous network (Het Net) strategy

to manage network growth. EE is in a fortunate position regarding its spectrum holding, hence there is no urgency to deploy small cells in volume today. Once we have deployed carrier aggregation - creating a super macro layer - we anticipate small cell deployment to commence in 2016, creating an underlying coordinated small cell layer.

Can you describe how small cells are thought about and handled within EE? For example, does EE have such a thing as a specific small cells strategy, or is it more that small cells form one constituent part of your overall network thinking?

Has EE made any determination on how it would like to go ahead with small cells? Have you established when, where and how you are likely to move on small cell deployments?

We are running a number of small cell trials throughout 2014 to test a number of different use cases and deployment scenarios for both coverage and capacity to provide critical operational and practical lessons to inform our commercial deployment. Whilst the main driver for small cells in the future will be one of capacity, the business case is far from proven. The opportunity to build a more flexible and cost effective deployment model through small cells is very attractive, however today that promise is not matched with reality.

There is a lot of activity in the UK right now around selling off the rights to mount small cell infrastructure on street furniture such lamp posts, CCTV poles and other council owned assets. Our trials this year will test the technology but more importantly will further inform our

position around our deployment scenarios. There are some real concerns in deploying small cells on infrastructure in these Local Authority assets – not only may it introduce a significant level of operational and practical complexity, it may not be a cost effective solution. Councils need to recognise the wider social and economic benefit that a dense 4G small cell layer could deliver to its residents and businesses: the value of which is much richer than receiving a nominal return in rental for deploying a small cell. The TCO for small cell deployment needs to be below 10% of macro deployment. Today, we are still not there and it is threating the deployment model. If local authorities want to encourage inward investment into these areas and create smart connected cities this is only possible if mobile operators are allowed to deploy this infrastructure in a cost-effective manner.

6 TMN MARKET UPDATE

Can you describe how small cells are thought about and handled within EE? For example, does EE have such a thing as a specific small cells strategy, or is it more that small cells form one constituent part of your overall network thinking?

PROS AND CONS: What do you “like” about small cells as a solution to enhance your customers’ experience and your own business. What reservations do you have about small cells as a tool for meeting EE’s requirements?

VENDORS NEED TO BE MUCH MORE AWARE OF THE CONSTRAINTS THAT ARE BEING PLACED UPON MOBILE OPERATORS

Small cells are a great tool to add coverage or capacity right at the heart of the demand area in a cost effective way. Due to the nature of small cells, the deployment process needs to be agile and rapid. We expect to be able to deploy a cell in a few weeks once the requirement has been identified. The challenge comes from a capacity perspective where it’s not always clear or obvious where the additional capacity needs to be deployed. Small cells will cover an area of 50-100m so it’s critical to know where you need to add capacity and have the choice of available

assets to deploy right first time in these locations.

There are a number of tools in development that predict where the mobile traffic hot spots are and hence will inform where to deploy the small cells, but these need to mature.

What more could the vendors do to make small cells an “easier” proposition? ie - do you have any outstanding requirements of the vendors in terms of the tech, cost, management etc.

Small cells come in all shapes and sizes and small doesn’t always mean small or light. There are a lot of considerations to be aware of when deploying small cells like, height, weight, what power levels and what backhaul connectivity, whether fixed or wireless, in addition to the bespoke requirements from the local authority. Vendors need to be much more aware of the constraints that are being placed upon mobile operators in terms of the physical and logical constraints when mounting small cells. It needs to be a single box of de minimis design and weight.

Do you think you will be in a position to, as Verizon and AT&T have done, make a public commitment to deploy X thousand public access outdoor small cells by a given date? Do you see any value in making public commitments like this?

Although, small cells are a key element of our strategy and we will deploy in significant volume in time, there is no pressing need due to our current spectrum holdings.

Networks have traditionally been built outside to in, from macro to micro.

Do you think the increased support for Het Net management and coordination in future 3GPP releases are likely to change that way of thinking - so that small cells become more integrated into overall network design and planning?

Small cells will be deployed in both outdoor public places as a capacity layer in high traffic areas and in-building to extend signal penetration and provide data offload for high traffic areas and coverage white spots. Both will be deployed, and both need to have close co-ordination with the macro layer. There are a number of techniques that can be deployed to address this such as eICIC or some form of centralised and de-centralised coordination, being developed by several vendors.

There are certainly more small cells being deployed in-building than ever before and this is an important area of focus for EE. If some of the commercial challenges of deploying small cells outdoors are not overcome, then potentially proportionally more indoor solutions could be deployed as a more cost effective solution.

A MISPLACED SMALL CELL WILL RESULT IN A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

FEATURE: HEAD TO HEAD

7 TMN MARKET UPDATE

What strategies and technologies is AT&T putting in place for the successful deployment of more than 40,000 small cells by 2015?

AT&T now has small cells up and running on our network in 29 states and in corporate high-rise, outdoor, and indoor locations. We are deploying femtocells and metrocells (both HSPA+ today and multi-standard metrocells in the near future), in addition to the continued use of Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) for small cell deployments.

In addition, we are innovating around how we most effectively deploy small cell technology. A recent technology developed by AT&T Labs and created by our scientists and network engineers is helping us deliver on our small cell rollout. The AT&T-proprietary, HetNet Analysis and Resource Planning (HARP) tool, uses radio propagation and mathematical

DAVID ORLOFF / DIRECTOR, SMALL CELLS PLATFORMS, AT&T

DAVID ORLOFF is a speaker at Small Cells World Summit. He gave this interview to event organiser Avren Events. You can access more speaker interviews and comment at www.smallcellsworldsummit.com

programming models to determine optimal locations to place small cells, allowing us to more quickly and efficiently deploy them.

By analysing key data points, HARP helps us understand how radio frequency (RF) waves move and work in a small cell environment. It identifies where small cells should be placed and recommends a backhaul solution – all with the goal of delivering an optimal customer experience and maximizing capacity and coverage.

Ultimately, this approach helps ensure we select the right sites for small cell implementation, based on the greatest need for our customers. HARP is already paying dividends for AT&T as we continue to advance our small cell initiative.

What new technologies do you see entering the market in the near future that will drive more small cell deployments from the operators?

Small cells inherently have Self Organizing Network (SON) capabilities built into the software which allow them to automatically adjust to their surroundings. When you combine this with other SON techniques deployed in the AT&T macro network, the result is a “smart” network that automatically adjusts to incorporate the benefits of small cells while continuing to leverage the umbrella effect of the macro

network. SON technology will continue to be critical feature in allowing carriers to be successful with integrating small cells onto their networks.

Tools and methodologies for automating provisioning are becoming more and more critical as the volume of small cells deployments increase. Solutions will allow for efficient deployment with less manual intervention.

8 TMN MARKET UPDATE

You’ve been CEO since February. What have you been brought in to do? What are your targets, internal and external?

To continue to enhance our membership engagement and recruitment, and also partnership development. My main objec-tive is to keep up the strong momentum we have with the Release programme.

What’s the latest on the Release programme. You launched the first part of R3 at Mobile World Congress…

We took the urban release it in two stages because urban is very important. R3 laid the foundation, R4 will be released in June and will delve into the details of technical solutions - looking into open access small cells, the X2 interface and elaborate on small cell network architecture. Unlike with other releases, where there already with extensive deployments, urban is in its very early days.

We have decided that R5 will be focussed on rural and remote access and we will be hammering out details of that in London (ed – at/during SCWS in June) but we don’t know timing of it yet. It will be towards the end of 2014 or early 2015.

What is specific about small cells that requires an industry body and this co-ordinated approach?

I think there are different barriers. Some technology issues are different. If our programme can help break down those barriers and provide different options for operators to use then it helps to bring barriers down: rather than individual operators figuring it out themselves. Deployment, site acquisition, backhaul, monetisation, all those kinds of things are different for each use case, but in each use case most operators have similar barriers, issues and drivers.

Do you worry that there’s a view that small cells as a concept got overheated, and there’s a slight re-adjustment of expectations of the market right now?

I don’t see that. I’m fairly new to small cells but I don’t see that and haven’t heard that either. I think everything is fairly well on target, although some regions are more advanced than others.

What else can the Forum continue to do to advance the causes of its members?

I think partnerships are key there. WiFi integration comes to mind: the WiFi Alliance and WBA are doing all kinds of work on carrier grade WiFi. We can do

DAVID ORLOFF / DIRECTOR, SMALL CELLS PLATFORMS, AT&T

more work with them to integrate WiFi and small cells. We work with the OMA and GSMA as well, so there’s plenty of things we can still do beyond these core Releases.

We’re seeing vendors really differentiate around their indoor and small cell policy, for example Huawei’s LamSite, Ericsson’s Radio Dot System and NSN’s Flexi Zone.

Does there come a point where the issue of what is a small cell, what gets viewed as a small cell, becomes relevant? For example, if somebody brings something out that looks more like a DAS and says it is a market-leading small cell do your members get put out by that? Do you think there’s room for further definition in terms of the programmes you put together?

The SCF has its own definition, which everybody uses in the way they need. For us our definition is that a small cell is an operator-controlled, low power, radio access point in licensed and unlicensed (carrier grade WiFi) spectrum. Beyond that the Forum’s technology agnostic. We think small cells and DAS are complementary, for instance. We don’t get too bothered as a Forum about the terminology, although our members may do.

UNLIKE WITH OTHER RELEASES... URBAN IS IN ITS VERY EARLY DAYS.

SUE MONAHAN / CEO, SMALL CELL FORUM

9 TMN MARKET UPDATE

FEATURE: HEAD TO HEAD

MAKING SMALL CELL WAVES IN 2014

MARKET

UPDATE SMALL CELLS

There are a few reasons for this. First, those operators without much sub 1GHz spectrum know that they need a way of providing good

in-building service, especially in the enterprise. Secondly, consumer expectations are now that they deserve full service even in a crowd of thousands – at an arcade, station, stadium or busy street. Third, vendors themselves are pushing systems as a competitive differentiator – seeing it as the next frontier in the sales battle. LTE macro is ongoing but mostly done – let’s take this inside.

It’s important to note that not every designated in-building solution is a small cell solution, or at least not as previously understood. Ericsson’s Dot Radio System has been described as more of a DAS, as has Huawei’s LampSite solution, which Huawei sees as complementary to its Atomcell small cell. The likes of CommScope has come up with a DAS architecture that includes a node with an almost frighteningly wide range of frequency support. The edges are blurring in any case. Witness Alcatel-Lucent’s integration over CPRI of its baseband with TE Connectivity’s DAS controller.

The knock-on effect of this is likely to play well for small cell vendors who can tell a story that includes these key aspects: your in-building solution must be easy to plan and design, it must provide a level, preferable a deep level, of integration within the wider network, and if it can support or host a service platform, that’s a bonus.

Another major theme emerging this year has been that of smoothing the path to deployment. Look to the sort of “Set Menu” approach of Alcatel-Lucent which is intended to make the process of ordering much easier for operators confused by a complicated looking A La Carte menu. Al-Lu has brought together a pre-ready meal of integrators, site owners, design and installation technicians. Skysites Americas is doing something similar, but more focussed on site acquisition and provision, in Latin America. Then there are the likes of Virgin Media Business and Arqiva in the UK that have spotted the opportunity to provide hosted or wholesale services to operators that are faced with logistical issues of gaining site access, approvals and all that that entails.

The most impactful industry trend on the small cells space has not necessarily been all about small cells. The past few months have seen an increase in competitive positioning around indoor and in-building coverage, with major vendors bringing to market with great fanfare new products that are aimed only at enhancing in-building service.

MAKING SMALL CELL WAVES IN 2014

There is still also a focus on the “monetisation” of the small cell deployment – beyond its mere anti-churn and revenue generative role as a provider of enhanced coverage and capacity. Ip.access is one company that has iterated this vision quite consistently, mapping out a sort of services pathway up which an operator can walk. You can view Cisco’s intelligent WiFi – which seeks to build services and applications on top of data analytics - as another iteration of the same view. Especially relevant here is the architectural approach exemplified in different ways by SpiderCloud and Nokia. Nokia’s vision is of a controller for up to a hundred small cells. This presents the small cells to the network as one macro cell, but it also allows for the more local siting of applications and processes (caching, for instance) that require computing support at the edge of the network. SpiderCloud has been talking exactly the same sort of game – developing with Intel an ecosystem of edge intelligence players – to wit Saguna Networks, for example, or the enterprise PBX integration of a Tango.

Technically, we have seen an increased focus from giant chip maker Qualcomm

into the small cells space, pushing concepts such as FeICIC for even more enhanced co-ordination and interference management at the systems level, thereby enabling (it hopes) denser deployments and more shipments. This commitment has been mirrored by Broadcom for example, among others supplying the small cell vendors with radio and baseband platforms.

There has also been a clear focus on the “smoothing” technologies – software for automated design and planning, and then for ongoing optimisation – either in centralised or hybrid SON configurations. Amdocs has pushed hard at this market this year, following its acquisition of Celcite and Actix. Qualcomm and other chip developers are pushing SON at the SoC level, and then there are the independent software providers, such as AirHop, whose solutions are integrated into small cell platfroms from the likes of Radisys, and then into OEM designs themselves. SON is not new to the small cell world, of course. Indeed, SON features such as ANR have been a staple for small cells. This year has seen increased emphasis, however, with some operators going so far as to design

their own systems so as to move ahead in the market.

So with all this activity and development, have we yet seen much small cell activity on the ground from operators? Well, yes and no. In South Korea, Japan, and the USA we have the by now well known and familiar deployments from SKT, KT, NTT and AT&T. But we are also seeing Brazilian operators make much more small cell noise (Oi and TIM Brazil), with TIM tapping up Alcatel-Lucent for a rollout and Oi targeting the technology to solve some of its headaches.

Yet major group operators in Europe who feel they have adequate spectrum, and many of them with coverage obligations to think about in the short term, still see 2016 as the year they will be stitching small cells into the fabric of their network – not as a patch by the way, but as something integral to the form of the cloth itself. But if they say 2016, do they really mean 2017 – another three years from here?

There has been a focus on “smoothing” technologies


FEATURE: MARKET MAKERS

Partnership with Qualcomm: joint investment in a strategic R&D program to develop the next generation of lightRadio products featuring Qualcomm Technologies’ FSM9900 family of Small Cell chipsets.

First Site Certification program for small cells: integrated process that provides a certified pathway for the deployment of small cells.Brazil: TIM will integrate Al-Lu femtocells to its 3G network, which concentrates its largest user base. Over a three-year period, TIM Brazil will make use of Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise Cell 9362, Homecell 9361, and Metrocell Outdoor 9364. China: China Mobile is deploying Alcatel-Lucent’s small cells solution in its TD-LTE network (which just happens to be the world’s largest).

Another company to announce a partnership with Qualcomm to power its small cells. Cisco also said it was extending its closed loop SON solution – Quantum SON, to enable small cell SON in a multi-vendor environment. The company also made play of its virtualised service architecture, allowing greater flexibility in the control of the network. This orchestration capability in the network is a key part of its smart network vision, enhanced by Quantum SON.

With the launch of its Radio Dot System the company was hoping for a major strategic impact on the market. Dot was described by Ericsson as “redefining” the small cell market, something that could be said literally because in many eyes what Ericsson has produced is a very smart and sleek looking DAS, with remote radios connected to Radio Units fed by a base station. At Mobile World Congress Ericsson was keen to point to active operator interest.

The dedicated small cell specialist was able to move the conversation on from mere product to something more strategic with its P-Series of so-called “Presence Cells”. A result of another industry alliance with Qualcomm (see Al-Lu and Cisco above) the cells were called “a completely new breed of small “ by the company. The idea is that the cells access presence data and support mobile phone location authentication to enable a range of new solutions including retail analytics, mobile finance and mobile promotions. Beyond the small cells themselves, ip.access also provides the back-end processing to deliver the presence data in a secure and anonymised form, direct to the vertical application provider.

Another one to bring a DAS-like solution to market – LampSite. The product has been put to work in a massive installation in Beijing airport by China Unicom. Also proved itself as an indoor solution in Vodafone’s UK HQ. That’s an interesting snippet – Vodafone is invested in SpiderCloud’s small cell solution for the mid to large enterprise market.Huawei also announced a “crowd-sourced” small cell solution for operators, which was a slightly confusing term for a small cell service package that include its AtomCell and LampSite products, its NFV-ready Service Anchor, its SON technology and its logistical relationships for sites, backhaul etc

Here’s our selection of key market makers in the small cell market in 2014. For a comprehensive collation of the small cell market ecosystem, see our Mapping The Small Cells map.

ALCA

TEL-

LUCE

NT

IP.ACCESS

HUAWEI

CISC

OER

ICSS

ON



The company not only brought an LTE-UMTS dual mode node to market, it saw the market move towards its vision of radio nodes that sit on existing cabling, controlled by a services node that is itself connected back to the operator core. NSN’s Flexi Zone, that places a batch of small cells under the control of a services node is very similar in philosophy, if different in application and execution. At MWC the company revelled in a range of partners from Intel, IBM and Saguna to Tango Networks. Intel has been here before, of course, in its work on edge intelligence with Ubiquisys (now Cisco). SpiderCloud was also able to point to Vodafone commercialising services based on its products in the Netherlands and the UK.

BACKHAUL A couple of notable advances here, in a sector where a lot has been happening for a while.

TARA

NA

WIR

ELES

SCC

S

SPIDERCLOUD OPTIMISATION & OTHER ENABLERSAMDOCS was one of many companies putting together an optimisation and SON strategy that included specific small cell capabilities. It took its network planning and deployment software and added small cell parameters to create a Small Cell solution, claiming that compared to internal process tools that operators have today Amdocs’ planning module would reduce network roll out time by 35% and costs by 25%. The company also messaged hard around the integration of Celcite and Amdocs into its optimisation and SON business.

IBWAVEAmongst those leading the charge for dedicated indoor and in-building planning and design solutions. The thrust from iBwave was around simplicity of use, and putting tools into the hands of technicians who are not highly skilled in RF design.

RANPLANRanplan made plenty of its in-to-out overall knowledge of RF behaviours, and its increased software design capabilities. Its push to market was emblematic of the need for products and software that make getting small cells into buildings easier.

Announced the introduction of its AbsoluteAir 2 product line. Operating in the sub-6 GHz bands, AA 2 extends Tarana’s Concentrated Multipoint (CMP) topology with support for up to six dedicated 250 Mbps NLoS links and an aggregate capacity of 1.5 Gbps. All links operate at full capacity in a single 25 MHz radio channel. While others claim NLoS support, Tarana claims it is the only company that can deliver real-world performance, zero touch provisioning and operation, and scaleability without compromise.

CCS said it had completed a roaringly successful trial of its self-organising point to multipoint small cell backhaul solution with China Telecom. The trial network consisted of a single CCS node located at the China Telecom head office on the eighth floor and a mesh network of additional nodes at street level and on nearby buildings. The average installation time per node was only 15 minutes including site preparation, without the need to RF plan or align antennas, CCS said. Throughput and latency tests were conducted at each location to demonstrate 480Mbps per node and sub-150s latency per hop. Greaves said that one of the unique advantages of the solution was its ability to automatically self-organise a group of nodes into an optimal topology without the need to RF plan or align the radio links.



OPERATORS SAY…

BUT… THEY SEE KEY

BARRIERS ON

THE

UP

SIDE

…

REDUCED COST DATADELIVERY

WIFI INTEGRATION

WH

Y AD

OPT

A SM

ALL

CELL

STR

ATEG

Y?

60% operators backhaul availability

55% site acquisition

40% network provisioning*

32% monetisation

LOGISTICS BACKHAUL

& TCO


CAPACITY INCREASE

NEW APPS & SERVICES

60%

55%

50%

50%


SO..HOW MUCH IS A SMALL CELL

TO DEPLOY?

DO THE ANALYSTS AGREE?


BETWEEN $6,000 TO OVER $60,000 PER DEPLOYMENT!

DEPENDING ON TYPE OF CELL, LOCATION AND BACKHAUL**

FEMTOCELL SHIPMENTS INCREASE TENFOLD 3.75 million in 2013 to 37.45 million in 2018‡

The installed base of small cells set to grow from almost 11 MILLION TODAY TO 92 MILLION IN 2016. 86% of them femtocells.º

BY 2017, three small cells per macro base station in urban areas. Today, 750,000 MACRO BASE STATIONS deployed worldwide in metro areas. That equals 2.25 OPEN ACCESS URBAN SMALL CELLS BY 2017 (if the number of macro base stations remained constant).º

AND

WHO

HAS

DEP

LOYE

D?

44RESIDENTIAL

26ENTERPRISE

56 OPERATORSDEPLOYED

17 IN OWN NETWORKS**

= 7.4 MILLION

SMALL CELLS

IN FIELD OCT 2013

642,000 SMALL CELLSSHIPPED IN 2013

GROWTH IN 2013 70%

UP 143% FROM 2012OVER 50% 3G

350%‡

86%

3G/LTE UP

FEMTOCELLS BY 2016

3G/LTE multimode shipments to INCREASE 350% IN 2014‡

*Maravedis-Rethink > †ExelixisNet & Xona Partners survey > ‡ABI Research > **iGR > º Ericsson and Informa T&M

WH

O’S

WIN

NIN

G?

100

100

80

80

60

60

INNOVATION

IMPL

EMEN

TATI

ON

40

4020 20

ABI RESEACH SMALL CELLS AND CARRIER WI-FI

COMPETITIVE ASSESSMENT

TOPVENDORS

500,000 public access small cells in live service worldwide by 2015.

Market Infographic sponsor: iBwave

SMALL CELL NETWORKS.

MAKE DESIGN SIMPLE.

MobilePLANNERMobileM

TMN Small Cells Market Update 2014

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Transcript of TMN Small Cells Market Update 2014