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...
A new report predicts that the distributed antenna system market will ship 2.5 million DAS nodes in 2017, or nearly doubling its current rate of sales.
Read more about small-cell deployments in the recent RCR Wireless News report “Small Cells, Big Future.”
The Mobile Experts report...
STOCKHOLM - Last week, Ericsson and the GSMA teamed up to offer members of the media a tour of Ericsson's customer demonstration center at the company's Kista headquarters addressing the work both parties are doing in support of the GSMA's 'Connected Living' program.
While the...
STOCKHOLM - To promote its work with equipment vendors at enabling the Connected Living program, the GSMA arranged a media tour of Ericsson’s customer demonstration studio at the Swedish vendor’s Kista headquarters. The GSMA and Ericsson arranged for a roster of speakers to discuss...
Symmetricom joined the small cells parade today by announcing a series of software-based clocking solutions aimed at supporting sync for both consumer and enterprise small cells deployments. The new SoftClock solution will support a variety of sync tools such as IEEE 1588 v2,...
Alcatel-Lucent launched what it is calling the Metro Cell Express solution based on its lightRadio hardware to help network operators improve capacity and performance in densely populated gathering places such as train stations, sports venues, etc. At first glance not much about the...
A new report from Berg Insights says the installed base of small cell base stations is growing at a compound annual rate of 44.8% a year, and is forecast to reach 14 million units by 2016. In 2011, there were an estimated 2.2 million...
As the newly appointed president and CEO of Freescale (FSL), Gregg Lowe may be calling on a number of the same customers he visited in his previous role as head of Texas Instruments' (TXN) analog chips business. The two Texas companies compete head-on in...
Yesterday Ericsson released its annual Traffic and Market report, which is based on the company's internal mobile traffic growth modeling exercises as well as data collected from external sources. Not surprisingly, Ericsson's report finds that mobile subscriptions, and thus, mobile traffic – particularly mobile...
Most operators and market analysts agree that cost effective backhaul is the greatest challenge for wide scale small cell network deployments. The high cost, arduous city approval process and
There is a lot of buzz around the term “heterogeneous networks,” but a big reason for the attraction are centered around Wi-Fi and small-cell technologies and their business implication for major stakeholders
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.
The 2012 edition of the International CTIA Wireless show held in New Orleans served as...
Beside hearing the obligatory merger rumors, and seeing an unbelievably massive amount of cell phone bling on display, last week's CTIA showcased plenty of equipment vendors showing off technologies that can help operators serve up blazing fast mobile broadband connections. Clearly small cells are...
NEW ORLEANS – Sprint Nextel has been hammered from all sides for poor decision making in the past, but you have to give this beleaguered carrier credit for at least attempting to right some of those questionable turns. More impressively – or foolishly –...
NEW ORLEANS – Verizon Wireless’ domination of the domestic, and for that matter worldwide, LTE market, was built on trials and tribulations. For a carrier that claims to currently carry 60% of the world’s LTE traffic and has a history of touting network quality,...
By now I've read most of the "what we expect to see" columns heading into this year's edition of CTIA Wireless. As expected, most of them are pretty bland, some are kinda whiny and a few are insightful.
With that in mind, rather than...
Wireless trade association CTIA shook up the plans for its annual spring event for 2012, pushing the shows traditional late March, early April timing until early May. In announcing the change last year, CTIA noted the move was due to requests from vendors that...
It is well established that mobile data traffic is growing much faster than mobile data service revenues. One thing that really has helped mobile operators handle this traffic is
ATLANTA – The wireless industry’s move to small cells has been accelerated by consumer demand for service in increasingly difficult places to reach with traditional cellular infrastructure. These locations include densely occupied buildings, packed public venues and underground.
This push to small cells led...
Nokia Siemens believes it needs to be ready for a 1,000-fold increase in data traffic by 2020. And yet at any given time, up to 80% of radio baseband capacity can be idle in a conventional network. That's why NSN developed what it calls...
