So what is needed to kickstart the outdoor market? More commonly, operators do not need to add vast amounts of capacity right now, like the Japanese players, but are planning for a mid-decade timeframe. To pull the switch on their programs, they need more than the shining examples of a few frontrunners. As well, they need the comfort and reassurance of volume products, practical blueprints and clear best practice.
The move to LTE, and particularly LTE-Advanced with features like eICIC, will be critical catalysts ‘ although many cellcos, particularly in Europe, remain primarily interested in 3G coverage in the short term. As Kohli commented: ‘The shift to indoors came because the industry couldn’t deliver its promises on outdoors in time. 3G outdoors is very difficult to deploy as an overlay small cell layer. LTE easier because it has coordination and SON between macro layer and was planned from scratch.’
Beyond LTE, a wave of outdoor deployment will depend on a combination of accelerated industry innovation, especially to address the thorny issues of SON interworking and fully integrated platforms; and clear, standardized requirements from operators. The latter would create a baseline set of requirements for suppliers, driving volumes, interoperability and economies of scale. That, in turn, would enable operators to follow something of a universal, tested blueprint for deployment, rather than having to invest heavily ‘ in cash and skills ‘ in the highly customized solutions which power the cutting edge deployments of east Asia.
The Small Cell Forum is taking a major role here. It has established a new Deployment special interest group; is extending its Release Initiative, which aims to provide ‘how-to’ guides for operators in various segments, to enterprise and then outdoor urban environments; and it is working on a set of operator requirements for small cells. All these will help create a knowledge base; avoid constant reinvention of wheels; take some of the intimidating mystique out of small cells projects; and therefore reduce cost and risk for cellcos, encouraging them to take the plunge.
At the show, the Forum announced details of Release Two, which provides a guide to help deploy enterprise small cells. This follows on from a similar exercise centered on residential cells, unveiled in February at Mobile World Congress. The full Release 2 documents will be published in December. Based on input from operators and the industry, they aim to provide a handbook for deployment, and also to identify challenges and opportunities to add value.
Among the features and capabilities which can be enabled by enterprise small cells, points out the Forum, are dedicated voice capacity, mobile unified communications, mobile call recording, local switching of voice traffic and context aware services, as well as network analytics. The process has identified the main challenges as being ‘inter-cell interactions, larger coverage areas and increased user numbers typically with higher user mobility’.
Gordon Mansfield, chairman of the Forum, said in a statement: ‘The enterprise segment represents a huge opportunity for the mobile operator community, both in terms of increasing coverage but also with enterprise IT architects who are seeking to move all personal communications services on to mobile devices and ‘unwire’ their organizations. However, to date the enterprise has largely proven hard to target effectively. Building on the solid foundation of Release One, our Enterprise Release will provide additional detail tailored to the segment to help operators unlock the considerable potential of this market.’
The Forum has also announced the formation of a Deployment SIG (special interest group) to drive consensus and create best practice for scalable small cells networks. It will work with other Forum working groups and SIGs such as Networks, Rural, Regulatory and Backhaul and its work will be specifically focused on four areas ‘ regulatory, business models, build (issues such as RF and backhaul planning and integration), and operational (including maintenance, accessibility, SON impact, service level agreements, key performance indicators and capacity provisioning).
‘As small cell deployments of all flavours continue to gain momentum around the globe there is a huge value to be had from sharing operator experiences of deploying and maintaining these networks with the wider ecosystem,’ said Graham Wright, CEO of the Forum. ‘The creation of this group provides a single point of focus to work closely with operators to share best practice and reduce deployment challenge.’
While very valuable, clear documentation and baselines are only one way to address the high complexity of the task in hand. TI’s Flanagan points out that small cells were initially regarded as relatively simple beasts, but once they move into the main carrier network, they will have to deliver the same KPIs as their macro cousins, for a fraction of the cost.
But there are elements of commoditization and standardization here, which will help reshape the wireless network market, shifting the focus to software and smart deployment rather than proprietary hardware. In that respect, the Forum can learn much from Wi-Fi, the first platform to introduce such concepts to the carrier space. Of course, there are many differences in approach because Wi-Fi lives in licence-exempt spectrum, but as the two platforms come closer together in the HetNet, we can expect cellular organizations to start to behave more like the Wi-Fi Alliance. More standardized kit, economies of scale, multivendor interoperability ‘ all these are features of the Wi-Fi world.
Another is the testing and certification process, but Gordon Mansfield, chairman of the Small Cell Forum, is not in favour of following the Wi-Fi Alliance in that direction. Remembering the WiMAX Forum’s attempts to shift the balance of interoperability testing from individual carriers and suppliers to a centralized authority, this may be a wise approach, given the high level of politics and complexity in licensed spectrum environments. However, the SCF does hold plugfests and plans to create profiles against which kit can be tested, and interoperability measured. He said: ‘We have resisted certification so far though we do create the environment. We will get to the point where operators can demand interoperability in certain profiles.’
The comments reflect the many difficult balances which Mansfield and his team must tread ‘ between encouraging a mass platform and being too prescriptive; between adopting the norms of the unlicensed spectrum world and respecting the habits of cellcos and their traditional suppliers; between pushing universality and volumes, and creating a climate for innovation. Despite the dilemmas and challenges, the heavy influence of operators on this Forum does lead to a clear-sighted vision of what needs to be done to kickstart the next wave of small cell deployment and create the beginnings of a true mass market. As the Summit showed, that will be all about the practicalities of deployment, as the hype simmers down and the real work begins.