There was a noticeable change from the intense focus of last year’s event on the outdoor space ‘ the race for lamp posts, full-scale multilayered HetNets and so on ‘ to the enterprise and indoor environments, and this is reflected in research on operators’ plans. Maravedis-Rethink, which tracks the top 100 4G operators’ deployment progress, has seen a significant shift in operators’ first-wave plans, to concentrate initially on the indoor space, whether providing enterprises with indoor coverage or rolling out public access cellular networks inside buildings (venues, restaurants, malls, airports and so on). Less than two years ago, a survey of the carriers’ plans saw the outdoor market being the the largest in unit terms, as early as 2014. In a recent study, while the forecasts for metrocells deployed by 2018 are very similar in volume terms, the location balance is quite different, with outdoor small cells only overtaking their indoor counterparts in 2016.
The change in emphasis has been driven by the complexity of many outdoor projects ‘ locating and negotiating sites; selecting the right backhaul; dealing with interworking with the macro layer. As Tom Flanagan, director of technical strategy in Texas Instruments’ wireless infrastructure unit, said: ‘Progress of small cells beyond the residential segment has been slower than we expected, mainly because of two issues ‘ backhaul and powering. The enterprise is the low hanging fruit because there is Power over Ethernet and Ethernet backhaul indoors.’ TI, like other ecosystem players, will concentrate its efforts on the indoor space for now and target outdoor metrozones later, when that space gains critical mass.
The focus on the indoor environment is also driven by the intense demand for capacity and coverage in locations such as public venues and cafes, where users tend to consume the most data. Both these sets of factors have driven many operators to weight their first wave small cell plans towards indoor environments, where they hope for a less complicated roll-out, quicker returns on investment, the chance to launch new services based around location, and the opportunity to form more strategic relationships with large enterprises and venue owners ‘ a long-held goal for most cellcos.
See PDF for graphs.
Forecast deployments of public access metrocells, divided by indoor and outdoor, to 2018. The upper graph represents operators’ plans as surveyed in the second half of 2011, the lower graph is the revised forecast conducted in April 2013.
Source: Maravedis-Rethink RAN Research Service (for more information on the data and research service, please email Caroline Gabriel on [email protected]).
Many others are chasing this revitalized enterprise opportunity, which is particularly welcome to those without a strong presence in the outdoor RAN. NEC falls into this category, and is increasingly active in small cells. Outdoors, it is waiting for LTE metrocells to take off, having steered clear of 3G small cells there. Indoors, it licenses Ubiquisys’ platform as the basis of its residential and small business cells, though following the Cisco purchase ‘ a combination Kohli said he ‘dreaded’ ‘ it plans to introduce a second option. For larger enterprises and venues, its key offering is the Spidercloud E-RAN platform, with which it claims to have over 20 large contracts. This fits with the trend to localize a great deal of intelligence and processing power, since it creates a single point of management and core network interface, in the shape of a localized enterprise controller. NEC, like Spidercloud itself, is also working to add applications on top of the platform, including PBX integration. Kohli said he had seen a rapid increase in the demand for small cell systems that can scale beyond 7-10 access points.
Such trends are important opportunities for vendors to drive short term volumes and to pursue a space where they have a fighting chance against the RAN giants. However, most carriers remain intent on eventually achieving outdoor capacity and coverage, with layers of small cells and integrated Wi-Fi leading to a full HetNet. If that process ‘ outside a few showcase markets like Japan and South Korea ‘ is coming more slowly than anticipated (or hyped), it remains essential to the cellcos’ LTE business plans. But for now, there seems to be a widening gulf between the small band of early adopters, like SK Telecom, Softbank and soon AT&T, and the pack. The cutting edge cellcos are important for lending credibility and proof points to the approach, but their roll-outs are necessarily individualistic and expensive, relying on high degrees of customization and addressing atypical business cases.