DALLAS – Verizon Wireless said it will deploy SpiderCloud Wireless’ LTE small cell systems for select enterprise customers, boosting coverage and capacity in buildings where the carrier’s macro network cannot support the demand for mobile data.
The solution is an alternative to a carrier-distributed antenna system for large enterprises. SpiderCloud said its “sweet spot” is buildings that are 50,000 – 1.5 million square feet in size. Its system uses self-optimizing network technology to manage up to 100 small cells with a single services node.
Verizon is the second large carrier to announce a partnership with San Jose, Calif.-based SpiderCloud, which has been providing 3G small cells for Vodafone for three years.
“We have learned a lot,” said SpiderCloud CMO Ronny Haraldsvik. “What it takes to operationalize this inside of a mobile operator … also what helps get this out faster and get this deployed easier in an enterprise environment.”
Haraldsvik said the company has another major carrier announcement in the works, and that he is seeing a lot of interest throughout the wireless ecosystem in SpiderCloud’s dual-band small cells.
“Each of our radio nodes speaks dual-band, so we can actually connect 3G and 4G users simultaneously on that same radio node, which is then deployed over Ethernet,” Haraldsvik explained. “With the announcement we made today with Verizon, that is a 4G/LTE dual-band system, which means you can support sometimes anywhere between 8,000Â and 10.000 users, all depending on the configuration of the system.”
Haraldsvik added that he expects to see Verizon work with a number of other small-cell vendors in addition to SpiderCloud. The SpiderCloud solution is tailored for enterprise needs and does not address outdoor coverage gaps.
