This week in small cell, distributed antenna system and Wi-Fi news:
— Time Warner Cable has added HotSpot 2.0 technology on most of the Wi-Fi access points in its national network, and says that it is “the largest Passpoint-enabled network in the country.”
The company is launching a new TCWWiFi-Passpoint” network with extra security, that TWC says makes public Wi-Fi as safe as a home Wi-Fi connections. Passpoint is the Wi-Fi Alliance’s certification for equipment that supports HotSpot 2.0, which allows automated authentication of users in order to enable seamless Wi-Fi browsing — and TWC said that after connecting to the network for the first time, “customers will then seamlessly connect to the new preferred secure network whenever in broadcast range.”
Time Warner said the net network option is already available on “nearly all” of its more than 33,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in southern California, New York City, Austin, Charlotte, Myrtle Beach and Hawaii, and that all new hotspots it deploys will have the Passpoint network option.
–Meanwhile, the newest Wi-Fi standard continues to make inroads in consumer technology. Charter Communications, which offers cable and Internet service in a dozen states including California, Texas and the Carolinas, announced that it will start rolling out a new 802.11ac wireless router from Netgear to its customers on May 16, and that it is the first ISP in its markets to do so.
The company said that the new router is “capable of delivering well over the maximum 100 Mbps” offered by its Internet service.
—Allied Market Research said that the femtocell market reached $304.8 million last year and predicts that it will reach $3.7 billion by 2020, driven by technological advancements and reduced cost for the equipment.
“Increased adoption of broadband services and mobile phone usage for video conferencing, software/music downloading and online gaming are driving the growth,” according to Allied Market, but added that the technology is hindered in the residential market by the high cost for home applications and the lack of awareness of femtocell technology.
—Aruba Networks said it has won a new customer in the health care arena: Slocum Dickson Medical Group, P.L.L.C. in upstate New York. The group sees about 2,500 patients daily and has about 70 physicians and 500 staff, many of whom work at both the main facility and two satellite locations. The new Aruba infrastructure and management system, placed with help from channel partner CDW, includes Aruba’s 802.11ac APs and mobility controllers, controller-less APs and mobility switches, as well as Aruba’s Network Management System and its ClearPass Network Access System.
—Relay2 Inc. is launching its Enterprise Cloud WLAN System, which is aimed at leveraging cloud technology to allow lower-cost management and installation of business wireless networks. The company says that its Enterprise Cloud WLAN Network Controller “provides all of the capabilities, performance, and functions of a traditional hardware controller in a Cloud-based [Software-as-a-Service] solution.”
–The Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis has a new distributed antenna system from Mobilitie that is expected to be operational this summer.
—TeleWorld Solutions has a new white paperon small cells available. The white paper includes information from a spectral efficiency study that the company did for a 20 MHz TD-LTE network, and concluded that at 25% and 75% network loading, pico cell deployments enabled 45% and 60% spectral efficiency at the respective load levels.
