Look back and forecast of Small Cells

Going through 'End of Year Report' by ThinkSmallCell. A good summary of what happened in 2016 and what we can see in 2017. This picture above from the same report is interesting. As you can see that the average speeds of 3G have decreased while that of 4G has increased significantly. I suspect what has happened is that the newer devices with more advanced 3G capabilities now have access to 4G while the older devices with basic HSDPA support have stayed on 3G, decreasing the average speeds.

You can also read the top 5 posts from this blog here.

Coming back to forecasts, another ThinkSmallCell Analyst Spotlight webinar where Caroline Gabriel from Rethink research and Kyung Mun from Mobile experts provide their insight into where small cells are headed in 2017 and beyond.

Personally, I think with VoWiFi becoming common in our devices, the market for residential and enterprise eventually will decrease. I hear you say what about QoS, well see my 3G4G blog post here.

Here are the slides and video from ThinkSmallCell webinar:

Small Cells Forecasts...

Small Cell Forum published a report last year titled 'Crossing the Chasm: Small Cells Industry 2015' in which draws on the findings of three very different pieces of research to show that, in 2015, for the first time outside the residential segment, small cells moved from trials and smaller deployments, to large-scale roll-outs, and this process of densification will accelerate from 2016 through to the end of the decade. The three studies each targeted a different base of respondents and so the plans and opinions of three key stakeholder groups – mobile operators, the component ecosystem, and enterprises – are all brought together to create a uniquely multidimensional view of the state of the market today. The report is available here to download.

ThinkSmallCell held their annual analyst forecast with Caroline Gabriel of Rethink Technology Research and Joe Madden of Mobile Experts. Their slide deck (with Video at the end) is embedded below. The webinar could also be viewed directly on Youtube here.

Feel free to add your opinion in the comments section on if you agree or disagree with these forecasts and statistics.

10 million small cells and growing?

There were some good news that was announced in MWC 2015. Here are some interesting points from Total Telecom:

• Operators around the globe have purchased more than 10 million small cells
• In excess of 75 operators worldwide are using small cells in their networks
• The majority of these to date have been deployed in residential scenarios, but we have also seen a significant step upward in the enterprise and urban sectors.
• 17,000 small cells have been deployed in rural or remote applications

While this all sounds good, Small Cells are facing many challenges. The biggest among them being WiFi. With the introduction of VoWiFi, many operators are starting to play a waiting game rather than deploy more small cells.

I blogged back in 2013 that AT&T planned to deploy 40,000 small cells by 2015 but it looks like they have now abandoned their goal. The reason being cited is that they acquired another small operator (Leap Wireless) which gave them additional macro sites, hence removing the need for small cells.

As per a report by the analyst firm ThinkSmallCell, TalkTalk, a UK based "thick" MVNO is trying to deploy an "Inside-out" Femtocell network. They have also been experimenting with 3MHz bandwidth in LTE and surprisingly, it works fine on most devices.


Another option could be to have LTE-LAA/LTE-U along with this and they could provide good speeds not only to the people indoor but also outdoor.

In any case, we will have to wait and see if operators continue rolling out small cells and if they do why, how, where and in which situations.

Small Cells and WiFi Forecast 2013 - 2019

We had this last set of forecasts back in February, here is a new one up to 2019/20.

The slides and the video is embedded below but I want to mention few things here. The first being that in the last year (or since the beginning of this year) the main change that has occurred is the availability of Voice over WiFi (VoWiFi), either as native or as an app, has become a commonplace. What this means that some small cells deployments are no longer high priority and has been pushed back.

On the other hand some operators are conscious that small cells can provide a better QoS than WiFi hence they are going ahead with Small cells deployments.

Anyway, Slides and Video as follows:

Please feel free to leave your opinions in the comments below.

Small Cells and WiFi Forecast 2012 - 2018

I have been following and having some interesting discussions on a Linkedin group where the main argument is that Small Cells may never really take off as its not a good solution and doesn't make a good business case. I think that kind of discussion is best left to do on Linkedin.

ThinkSmallCell held a webinar recently inviting couple of leading experts to discuss their forecasts for Small cells. The webinar slides and videos are embedded below. Here is a quick comparison of what these independent leading experts had to show:

The main point to note above is that we will hopefully hit 1 million public access small cells probably around/after 2015. My view on why operators have been slow in deploying small cells have been mainly to do with interference management. As we know, Small cells are deployed for Coverage and Capacity and is mainly deployed in Co-channel (same carrier as Macro). If there is no or little coverage, Small cells deployment is not an issue. With higher frequencies, the reception in the houses goes down so deploying Femtocells make sense. With public access small cells, interference (especially on 3G) has to be managed. Surprisingly the practical results for co-channel public access outdoor small cells deployed for capacity purpose is not too bad but there is a no coverage area created as a result of interference at the edge of the small cell. This can cause handover issues.

In LTE-A, Interference techniques like (f)eICIC will help handle these situations so I wont be surprised if there are lots of deployments next year with this interference management capability.

The main thing to note is that WiFi will play a huge part for the connected devices of the future. Most of the small cells deployed with also have a WiFi capability so operators can use that to offload traffic from the cellular on Wi-Fi.

My understanding is that in future we will see Macro cells mainly serve high-mobility connections (including connected cars) and Small cells and WiFi will be used for low mobility and fixed access. I guess the real advantage of cellular over Wi-Fi in this low mobility scenario is that since Wi-Fi is unlicensed, there could be interference from many unpredictable sources. Licensed cellular bands dont generally have this issue.

Anyway, the presentation and video from webinar is embedded below:

More than 5 Million Metrocells to be shipped in 2017

From the Microwave Journal:

Mobile Experts has released a new Small Cell Market Forecast, predicting more than 5 million metrocells shipped in 2017.

Based on weak shipment data during 2012, Mobile Experts predicts slow growth for residential femtocells, at only 12 percent per year. Faster growth will come from capacity upgrades, as mobile operators are pushing hard for high-capacity small cells. The new Mobile Experts forecast predicts that, taken together, outdoor metrocells and indoor capacity nodes will overtake residential femtocell shipments in the 2016 time frame.