Small cells have suffered the best and the worst of the mobile industry’s tendency to wishful thinking. A decade ago, there was still a ‘them and us’ attitude to WiFi among many mobile operators and vendors, and the first small cell incarnation – the residential femtocell – as well as the prospect of an outdoor public version, promised a cellular version of the affordable, deployable WiFi access point or hotspot. This helped to propel the budding small cell technology into the spotlight and to attract significant MNO interest. However, the idea of sidelining WiFi, in public, enterprise or home environments, really did turn out to be wishful thinking, not least because MNOs realize they could put unlicensed spectrum to work…