Vendors are rushing to develop wireless infrastructure that will enable carriers to deploy LTE in unlicensed spectrum. Qualcomm, the world’s biggest maker of LTE modems, is leading the charge. Just before Mobile World Congress, the chipmaker announced partnerships with Samsung and SpiderCloud Wireless, two very different companies that have one thing in common – both have been chosen to supply small cells to Verizon Wireless.
Samsung is launching an LTE-U EFemto cell that uses Qualcomm’s FSM9955 chipset. Qualcomm claims the chip is specially designed for coexistence with Wi-Fi per the latest LTE-U Forum specifications released last October.
Wi-Fi access point makers are concerned about sharing the 5 GHz spectrum band with LTE, but since it is unlicensed spectrum the Wi-Fi providers have no choice unless the Federal Communications Commission decides to intervene. Ruckus Wireless and Boingo Wireless seem to see the writing on the wall; both have joined a new consortium called the MulteFire Alliance, which is working to develop an LTE-based technology for small cells operating solely in unlicensed spectrum.
SpiderCloud Wireless, also a member of the MulteFire Alliance, plans to work with Qualcomm to develop LTE-U, LTE license access assisted and MulteFire systems for enterprises and public venues. Verizon Wireless plans to trial SpiderCloud’s LTE-U systems in the third quarter of this year. SpiderCloud’s solution targets buildings of up to 1.5 million square feet and uses a controller that connects to Ethernet and can manage up to 100 baseband-equipped small cells. The company plans to develop LTE-U solutions using Qualcomm’s FSM9900, a small cell system-on-chip designed to support both LTE and 3G, as well as carrier aggregation.
For Qualcomm, the partnerships with SpiderCloud and Samsung are a clear sign the San Diego company is succeeding in its effort to create an ecosystem around LTE-U. The company already dominates the market for connectivity chipsets in high-end smartphones and could end up with a similar position the small cell market.
Although Qualcomm pioneered LTE-U, Intel is determined to play a role. China Mobile is already trialling LTE-U small cells based on Intel’s Transcede system-on-chip, with deployments planned for later this year. China’s Baicells is the maker of the Light4G small cell solution used by China Mobile. The Light4G integrates Radisys’ TotaleNodeB software, enhanced with LTE-U functionality. According to Tom McQuade, GM for Radisys’ CellEngine and Trillium software, Baicells hopes to launch trials with North American operators in the near future.
Feature Report: Getting Small Cell Networks Right (free download).
Follow me on Twitter.
