Patrik Jakobson, Ericsson’s head of Network Sharing, joined Jeff Mucci, RCR Wireless News editorial director, to discuss Ericsson’s recently announced contract with Ozone Networks to provide small cell as a service across India.  Ozone Networks is one of India’s leading public neutral Wi-Fi providers,
Today’s announcement follows Ericsson’s recent unveiling of their small cell portfolio in India.
Key of the Wi-Fi small cell as a service announcement include:
– 30,000 carrier-grade Wi-Fi access points rolled out for Ozone across India
– Ericsson to provide and manage Wi-Fi technology for a period of five years, under an as-a-service model
– Ericsson to support Ozone with opportunities for monetizing the WiFi network
According to Jakobson, the contract includes turnkey design, installation and management of the network and is based largely on the technology Ericsson acquired in the purchase of BelAir Networks.
In the initial phase  of the project, Ericsson will provide Ozone with 30,000 Wi-Fi access points and network management nodes and tools, as well as a variety of options for monetizing the Wi-Fi network. As a neutral carrier-grade platform, Ozone will be positioned to offer telecommunications operators an option to offload data traffic to the network.
“In today’s world, consumers like to be connected at all times, which means that network capacity becomes an extremely important factor,” Sanjeev Sarin, CEO at Ozone, said. “Deployment of Ericsson’s Small Cell as a Service offering will enable us to better manage consumer expectations in ultra-dense environments. The partnership will also ensure that Ozone is able to establish the neutral Wi-Fi model in India, which will help the Indian government make the right to Internet access a reality for every Indian.”
Jean-Claude Geha, VP and head of Managed Services at Ericsson, said: “Small Cell as a Service is an innovative offering that enables operators to increase network capacity in environments where it isn’t practical to build parallel networks.”
