BROWSING: Small Cells

While the wireless industry is well aligned on small cells being the next step in network evolution, the urgency, path, methods and overall choice of vendors and means of deployment is still up for debate. New entrants in the RAN market are offering potentially...

The appetite for wireless services and applications is driving hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue annually for operators. Building an infrastructure that meets the capacity and reliability

The battle for small cell supremacy is expected to shape the wireless infrastructure for years to come as operators decide on how to densify their mobile broadband networks in order to better serve dense, urban markets. The battle is between distributed antenna systems and...

AT&T kicked off an investor conference in New York with news that it will invest $14 billion in broadband during the next three years. $8 billion of that will go to wireless, and $6 billion will go to the carrier's wireline infrastructure. AT&T says its...

The small cell market continues to outgrow its “small” nature with continued development across the space. The latest development is an agreement between two factions of the space: traditional small cells and Wi-Fi. The Wireless Broadband Alliance, which is one of many industry associations focused...

An estimated 6 million small cells have been deployed worldwide, as operators rush to meet the demand for bandwidth and consumers demand connectivity in every corner of their lives. Informa Telecoms and Media says that the number of small cells now exceeds the number...

In 2002, Billy Beane’s Oakland Athletics set an all-time baseball record winning 20 games in a row. In the process Beane’s “moneyball” concept revolutionized the sport, changing its thinking, its planning and its economics.

There are a lot of opinions circulating that relate to small cells – how they will be deployed, how they will perform, what will they look like – but what’s become clear is there’s a consensus that small cells

Almost every presentation at the conferences this year includes the “tsunami chart.” You know the one: It shows growth of mobile data demand, doubling every year.

Since the dawn of mobile, operators have looked to penetrate the enterprise market yet, in spite of their continued travails, success has been limited. For the majority of SMEs, the PBX

ORLANDO, Fla. – The tower industry shares many similarities with its customer segment – wireless carriers – including the penchant for merger and acquisition activity. Recent history has seen a number of deals announced in the space, though the possibilities for more activity could...

The roll out of LTE and the need for expansion and improvements of 3G networks comprise the biggest challenge for the telecom industry across Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, customers are seeking more data capacity. It is time to improve and expand...

Brazil has not yet adopted a regulation for the use of femtocells across the country, but both the minister of communications, Paulo Bernardo, and the president of telecom regulator Anatel, João Rezende, have recognized the importance of small cells to improve telecommunications services. Follow RCR...

Even as LTE deployments begin in earnest, Latin American and Caribbean wireless carriers continue to focus investments on the expansion and improvement of 3G networks. Wi-Fi, femtocells, microwaves and towers are expected to receive the largest share of telecom operators’ investments and efforts. The...

Advanced mobile services such as LTE are forcing mobile operators to re-evaluate macro-focused network architecture. Even 3G service coverage maps are believed to be optimistic in many cases,

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers, we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we...

There’s a strong consensus among service providers that small cells will be an integral part of their 3G, HSPA and LTE deployments in the future. However, the timing of deployments, use cases, and the range of potential architectures cause some uncertainty in the best...

4G and LTE technologies will only partially deliver the efficiencies required to handle the necessary network capacity. Service providers are looking towards the use of small cells to help alleviate the capacity issue.

In the near future, small cells, which encompass femtocells, picocells and microcells, will cost less than smartphones, thus providing a wide avenue to support mobile data growth, Qualcomm CEO, Paul Jacobs predicted. Jacobs was in Brazil this week to participate in Innovation Qualcomm 2012 in...

Small cells consist of femtocells, picocells and microcells. They are defined by what they aren’t – traditional macro cell networks. Small cells exist to improve data and/or voice coverage via throughput for users

Just days after announcing a small cell partnership with Alcatel-Lucent, Sprint Nextel today said it has an agreement with Samsung to develop small cell network infrastructure for the carrier’s ongoing Network Vision program. The agreement calls for Sprint Nextel and Samsung to bolster the carrier’s...

There is a near universal consensus among mobile operators that small cells are the way of the future – the only solution that will enable them to provide the capacity they need to meet the expectations for the fast growing numbers of smartphone users.

Alcatel-Lucent’s LightRadio offering garnered a significant domestic customer as Sprint Nextel said it will use the “metro cells” to augment coverage in high-traffic areas. Sprint Nextel noted that initial deployments would be to enhance indoor coverage and capacity improvements. The deployments are part of Alcatel-Lucent’s...

Small cell technology continues to make inroads into carrier deployments as Ruckus Wireless announced today that Telefonica’s O2 operations in the United Kingdom has begun deploying its products for coverage across parts of London. Ruckus noted that the deployment uses its SmartCell 8800 products to...