While mobile operators may look ahead to hyperdense 5G and smart cities smothered with connectivity, even relatively modest deployments of urban small cells will make little economic sense if key issues of cost and deployability are not addressed. The urban small cells themselves are considerably more expensive than WiFi access points, but that will change as scale rises at the commodity end. There is also rising interest in a class of cells which does not compete directly with WiFi in cost and simplicity, but is ‘macro-equivalent’. Nokia, for instance, offers units within its FlexiZone family which have higher power than most small cells, use the same software as its macrocells, and are designed to have the same range of functionality.…