Small-cell focus still largely on densification, but private-network opportunity growing

Some big ambitions for small cells were on display during the annual Small Cell World Summit in London this week. But it’s worth remembering that on the ground, their deployment is still at a relatively early stage.

Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis, who chaired a panel addressing the issues of value creation and monetization, summarized the situation by saying: “Clearly we are on a journey, but it might be quite a long one.”

He later noted that, for now, the focus seems to be on increasing network capacity through densification, with the next step being “capacity enhancement from 4G to 5G increment,” starting indoors.

Bubley reiterated that for many small cells, the next generation is 5G, not 5G Advanced or 6G. To commit to any upgrades, he pointed out, there ideally needs to be a business case to justify the investment.

Gabriel Brown, a senior principal analyst for mobile networks at Heavy Reading (Light Reading’s sister company) said in emailed remarks to Light Reading that: “Indoor 5G adds make a big difference to how attractive a venue is to its users and therefore is of direct interest to landlords. The logic leads, inexorably, to the conclusion that building owners and venue operators should contribute funding to indoor 5G systems.”

He went on to say that real estate developers are now very aware of this requirement, while owners of existing buildings sometimes take more persuading. “An indoor coverage system can make a big contribution to achieving a higher ‘WiredScore,’ which building owners increasingly use to market their venues,” he said.

WiredScore assesses and certifies connectivity inside buildings within a standardized framework. It helps translate the digital infrastructure available into simpler language and explain its capabilities to audiences such as renters.

In search of a business case

In some areas, the business case may be less straightforward. Ali Akhtar, BT Wholesale’s head of acquisition and contracts, pointed to the example of a Liverpool hospital that wanted to deploy a private network for the purposes of transferring records. He said that there was a need to find a business case based on a commercial use as well, such as improving connectivity for patients.

There was agreement among the panelists that government initiatives supporting small cells ensure that the projects can eventually stand on their own two feet. Nick Wiggin, head of partnerships at Freshwave, a UK-based infrastructure-as-a-service company, pointed to the £80 million (US$99 million) Open Network Ecosystem Competition from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a good example of this.

According to Abel Mayal, the senior vice president of technology and marketing at Airspan – a network densification provider and a vendor of 4G and 5G software – there are currently two main markets for small cells. The first is network densification for or by mobile network operators (MNOs), which still mainly consists of 4G deployments, while the other is private networks based on open radio access network (RAN) technology, which tend to use 5G.

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