Of course, there are still players which hope that critical mass will never come, or at least not in the multivendor, standards-based pattern envisaged by the Small Cell Forum’s members. Ericsson and Huawei were conspicuous by their absence from the Summit, and while both accept that cells will get ever-smaller to deliver mobile data capacity, they still stand back from launching true metrocells, focusing instead on distributed or Cloud-RAN architectures which can accommodate small sites, but remain firmly under their centralized control. Indeed, commenting on Verizon’s stated plan to start adding LTE coverage with small cells this year, Ericsson said it would be providing its RBS 6501 micro-RRU (remote radio unit) to the firm. That architecture does not include full metrocells, but keeps the carrier tied into its macro vendor via a C-RAN approach which Ericsson is keen to present as a ‘small cell’ platform.
Of course, both of the infrastructure leaders will be more than capable of magicking a metrocell out of a hat when they see the requirement, but their tipping point is likely to be the start of mainstream outdoor deployments of public access small cells ‘ in their critical territories.
There is the risk, for the market leaders, that they hesitate too long and miss the chance to grasp a leadership role in this emerging area. Already, small cells have been more operator-driven than most previous wireless technologies, and large carriers like AT&T and Vodafone are hugely influential in setting the agenda for the Small Cell Forum and for the vendor community. However, there is still a chance for a large supplier to assume the role of agenda-setter, and it was very clear in London that Cisco was moving into that position. The IP giant had a very high profile,especially on the back of its recent acquisitions of small cell pioneer Ubiquisys and SON innovator Intucell. These purchases saw Cisco adding radio network expertise, traditionally not a strength, to its IP networking domination, and signalling clearly that it will be an end-to-end player, adding base stations to its gateways, packet cores, routers and enterprise controllers.
The broad trend for IT and telecoms technologies to converge clearly sets up a power battle between the data center giants like Cisco, IBM and Intel, against the traditional mobile network giants. Some of the latter are strengthening their hand by forming close partnerships with IT majors, as Nokia Siemens has done, via its LiquidApps platform, with IBM and Intel. The gradual progress towards software defined networking in carrier markets will encourage such coalitions between the experts in radio and networking, and those with smarts in IP and data, as the hardware becomes more commoditized. Small cells may be a catalyst for both these key trends in the mobile sector, encouraging the convergence of data and RAN with edge-based intelligence, and providing hardware architectures which will lend themselves to future standardization and commoditization, shifting the competitive focus to software intelligence and eventually SDN. There are already early signs of this ‘ Ubiquisys’ Smart Cell, which features an Intel-based companion chip to conduct processing and caching at the small cell site; Quortus’s distributed packet core functionality or Aricent’s implementation of an EPC on an Intel chip; Altobridge’s edge-based RAN caching approach.
Behind such trends lie the concepts where Cisco shines ‘ the ‘network as computer’; massive processing and routing of IP packets; distributed broadband architectures; intelligent handling of video. It aims to ‘disaggregate the siloes’ in carrier networks ‘ not just between IT and networks, but between different elements of the cellular infrastructure, as Starent (now Cisco’s packet core platform following its acquisition) did by offering an EPC that was independent of the RAN. As Jared Headley, director of small cell solutions at Cisco, said: ‘We must abstract software from hardware and innovate in software. We see two trends spreading from the residential gateway area ‘ more intelligence at the edge, such as local DPI, content filtering and so on, but also more smarts up the network in areas like legal intercept. Success will lie in how we sync between the cloud and the edge.’
This is the heart of the attempt by Cisco ‘ and Intel ‘ to take a central role in mobile networks, by combining cloud and data center expertise with invading the RAN via commoditized hardware and clever software at the edge. So it is no wonder the company sees small cells as a golden opportunity to add the missing element to its end-to-end networking offering, the base station itself. However, this also means taking on powerful and unfamiliar rivals, such as Ericsson, and mastering a new technology world with a mass of history and complexity behind it. It remains a key debate ‘ within Cisco too, probably ‘ whether the company really will target the outdoor carrier market, where it will have to interoperate with macro networks from hostile competitors, or whether it will stay in its enterprise and indoor comfort zone.
In our view, to gain a permanent seat at the carriers’ high table, Cisco will have to address the outdoor RAN. It already does this to a limited extent with its carrier Wi-Fi activities, and these will become increasingly integrated with the cellular network. Operators are talking about HetNets which not only cross the boundaries of spectrum and air interface, but also of indoors and outdoors, so it makes little sense for Cisco to exclude itself from a large section of the network. It could even buy a macrocell vendor, though it insists that this would be a bridge too far, and that, with new deployments shifting to small cells, it would be unnecessary.
That stance contains some good sense, but it leaves Cisco with the challenges of macro interworking. These are not just technical but commercial. Most operators want the flexibility to mix and match their small cells but this requires standard interfaces in which they have full confidence. That was one matter in residential markets ‘ the then-Femto Forum proved highly disruptive when it created what became the Iuh interface, allowing any vendor’s femtocell to connect to the femto gateway and the core. But in outdoor, carrier-grade, public access markets, there are greater performance and interference challenges, and greater resistance from major RAN players.
At the point where these base stations move into Ericsson’s most critical territory, we can expect it to make its move, and to try to make it difficult for operators to pursue multivendor strategies. We can expect Ericsson and Huawei to work hard to persuade cellcos that their proprietary SON enhancements are essential to strong performance, and generally to play on very real fears of multivendor network chaos to push end-to-end solutions. Their key weapon will be macrocell harmony ‘ as Anil Kohli, chief marketing officer for NEC’s small cells unit, put it, ‘Ericsson and Huawei will create barriers to interoperability with their SONs’.
That leaves Cisco with the pressure to convince operators that the best-of-breed approach will be viable; to make significant inputs to ensure standards like X2 live up to carriers’ requirements; and to fight against the entrenched relationships that Ericsson et al have with the key customer base.
That will be tough and so it is greatly to Cisco’s advantage that the focus of the small cell market has, for now at least, shifted sharply towards the enterprise and the indoor space (whether private or public access). Here, Cisco has the entrenched power, as Ericsson does outside, and the ability to present small cell networks as an extension of existing enterprise networking infrastructures and Wi-Fi.