Ip.access touts shipment of 2 millionth license for 3G small cell
LTE small cells, for both service providers and enterprises, is a hot topic in the telecom industry. In the context of 5G, small cells are seen as a key driver of pinpoint coverage and capacity. But what about 3G small cells?
Beginning eight years ago, AT&T and Cisco began offering customers the AT&T MicroCell, which is billed as providing “up to five-bar coverage in your home.” The offering is targeted to users who work from home, and can “stop worrying about missed business calls…Control costs and still talk as long as you want inside the office.”
U.K.-based ip.access has been in the small cell business for 15 years. The company is currently focused on providing multi-carrier support in small cells with its Viper platform, which includes proprietary SUMO (super multi-operator) technology, which enables shared access small cells. According to ip.access, SUMO allows “each access point broadcasts multiple PLMN codes on the same spectrum and all users see the AP as a cell within their home network. A policy based resource scheduler in the AP allocates capacity and bandwidth according to predefined rules managed via SLAs. The Viper gateway then securely routes all traffic to the appropriate core network for each operator.”
Back to the 3G arena, ip.access provides a software platform for AT&T offering. Ip.access, noting the volume of licensure shipments, said in a statement, “Having been deployed, hardened, enhanced and maintained continuously over the last eight years…[the] platform guarantees performance at the highest quality of service standards while still being delivered independently.”
Company CTO Nick Johnson said, “Passing two million shipments demonstrates the experience we have of delivering and managing the mass-market roll-out of our small cells. It also means that we understand this layer of the network better than anyone else in the market, when other vendors have fallen short. This knowledge permeates our business and our technology and is vital to our ability to support the mass roll out of small cells for other applications – whether that is in the enterprise, in transport deployments or elsewhere. As customer demand for reliable indoor coverage increases across the board ip.access’ experience means it is in the prime position to capitalize on the significant market opportunity that demand represents.”