A small cell that can support up to four operators is in development at SpiderCloud Wireless. Small cells can boost connectivity in buildings that are hard for cell tower signals to penetrate, but so far they have typically been deployed by a single carrier within a venue. That makes it hard for a building to offer a better cellular experience to all its occupants through small cells.
“Multi-operator support is something we’ve been asked about for many years,” said SpiderCloud CMO Ronny Haraldsvik. “But it’s not something that becomes available until systems integrators and venue owners can buy the systems direct from either ourselves or our partners. So it’s something that we know has been coming for quite some time. … Our dual-band radio can actually separate out the two operators on one radio and we don’t have any interference issues with putting two radios next to each other, which means you can support three or four operators with just two radios.”
SpiderCloud’s dual-band radio nodes offer simultaneous 3G/LTE service or dual-carrier LTE service. Recently Verizon Wireless entered an agreement with SpiderCloud for dual-band LTE small cells. This week SpiderCloud said that through a software upgrade, its small cell radios will support carrier aggregation with peak rates up to 300 megabits per second.
“Carrier aggregation is table stakes, everyone has to have it,” said Haraldsvik, adding that SpiderCloud can combine almost any mix of spectrum bands, and can add new spectrum support to existing deployments. “We can accommodate those differences and do so in software updates,” he said.
SpiderCloud is the second vendor to launch a solution that can support more than one carrier. Airvana launched a multi-operator small cell solution last year, and is in discussions with neutral-host providers that plan to invest in the solution and lease connectivity to carriers. Airvana also said that it hopes to sell its small cell systems to carriers that will then lease connectivity to other operators, a model that has worked in the distributed antenna world but is less proven with small cells.
Multi-operator small cells are likely to be more interesting to venue owners and systems integrators than to mobile operators. For now, SpiderCloud does not foresee operators deploying its new multi-operator solution, but sees strong demand coming from integrators and venue owners. “We’re getting a lot of demand directly from system integrators and real estate owners that are willing to pay for this system, or even hospitals that are willing to pay for this system, and since they’re paying for it, they can set the requirement,” Haraldsvik said.
Venue owners may be willing to pay for small cells, but they need carriers to bring connectivity, and when something goes wrong they often need carriers to help troubleshoot. When problems arise, operators and integrators want to minimize disruption for the venue owner. With this in mind, SpiderCloud has integrated a Bluetooth low-energy beacon with its iOS and Android mobile apps. The goal is to enable most configuration and maintenance to occur without climbing into the ceiling, where many small cells are deployed. SpiderCloud’s director of enterprise solutions says Bluetooth brings another benefit for venue owners.
“We start having the ability to say ‘now that I’ve got managed radios out there with Bluetooth, now that those radios can broadcast an identity, how does the facility owner potentially tap into that identity and use that for other kind of customer-facing business apps like mobile shopping apps, customer loyalty apps, shortest bathroom queue, etc.?'” said SpiderCloud’s Art King.
King said that iOS and Android support Bluetooth advertising within their OS kernels, so the SpiderCloud app sits on top of the native OS support. The Bluetooth module replaces an LED light in the hardware.
SpiderCloud is a Silicon Valley startup that focuses exclusively on enterprise small cell solutions, and has successfully taken on much larger competitors like Ericsson, Huawei and Cisco. Within the last three months the company has announced its partnership with Verizon Wireless and a new $20 million funding round.
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