Urban Small Cells - Gordon Mansfield MWC14 Small Cell Zone presentation

Small Cell ForumMobile World Congress24-27 February 2014

The Small Cell Forum

• To accelerate small cell adoption to change the shape of mobile networks and maximise the potential of the mobile internet

• Not-for-profit, founded in 2007• Independent, inclusive, international

Aims• Ecosystem development• Market education• Driving open standards

66 operators covering 3 billion global mobile subscribers – 44% of total

76 providers of small cell technology representing all parts of the ecosystem

2013 at a glance

© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

Our Release program: how it works


• Release Three shows urban small cells are an essential component of future networks in delivering cost-effective capacity and deep in building coverage for public places.

• Operators cite capacity densification as their main driver, and backhaul, optimal site acquisition and monetization as their key concerns. We address all these issues and more in Release Three.

Announced today!Release Three: Urban foundations


• Urban small cells are cells deployed by operators in areas of high demand density on an open-access basis to all the customers of the operator.

• They can be deployed outdoors on street furniture or indoor public locations such as transport hubs and retail malls.

What we mean by urban



2014 operator survey: Most valuable Release content

Source: Maravedis-Rethink Global Operator Survey, Jan 2014

Business case (45)

Best practice and case studies (40)

Reference scenarios (36)

Deployment guidelines (33)

Backhaul recommendations (33)

Network architecture (28)

Procurement guidelines (24)

White papers & market studies (24)

Standards update (20)

Regulatory details (17)

• Improve capacity

• New revenues from value added services

• Fill capacity holes

• Reduce cost of data

• Improve coverage

2014 operator survey: Top drivers to deploy urban small cells


Source: Maravedis-Rethink survey of tier one and two mobile operators worldwide, January 2014

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2014 operator survey: Perceived barriers to urban deployments


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Source: Maravedis-Rethink survey of tier one and two mobile operators worldwide, January 2014

• Urban small cells are at an earlier stage in their commercial development than their more mature residential and enterprise counterparts.

• Release Three focuses on establishing the need, evaluating the business case and identifying key barriers to commercial deployment.

Announced Today!Release Three: Urban foundations


What’s in Release Three?

New documents• Urban Small Cells: Release overview

• Market drivers for urban small cells

• Business case for urban small cells

• Urban SON use cases

• Urban small cell network architectures

• Next generation hotspot-based integrated small cell Wi-Fi

• Regulatory aspects of small cells

• Backhaul for urban small cells: a topic brief

• Deployment issues for urban small cells

• Small cell services in the urban environment

• Small cell application programmers’ guide

• LTE eNB L1 API definition

Revised documents• Market status statistics

• Small cell and Wi-Fi coverage study

• Deployment issues for enterprise small cells

• SCF Release structure and roadmap

• Small cells, big ideas

• Market status statistics Q1 2014 – Mobile Experts


While capacity enhancement is the leading market driver today, for some operators enhanced coverage depth will be a major driver

User experience enhancement drives additional upside for users and may ultimately lead to greater small cell volumes than capacity

Venue-based urban small cells can also benefit from additional services: such as retail analytics

We commissioned an independent analysis of the business case for Urban small cells from Real Wireless, a leading UK-based wireless advisory firm

Identified four operator market drivers for urban small cells

Source: Real Wireless

Case study aligned with market drivers

Capacity-driven case study in urban area yields:• Benefits of $48.6m (present value) • Total cost of ownership of $29.8

million• Positive net present value for

operators of $28m • Return on Investment of 136%.

Coverage-driven case study yields:• Operator without low-frequency

spectrum can achieve equivalent coverage and produce cost savings $2.8m-$7.2m

• User experience also enhanced with substantial user and operator financial benefits

City centre railway station

Outdoor urban small cells Indoor urban small cells

• Small cells meet the capacity needs of hyperdense indoor environments

• Yields low incremental cost of capacity: 0.3-2.3 US cents per GB

Source: Real Wireless

• Architectural domains: Small cell RAN, macro RAN, backhaul transport and operator core network

• Sub architectural framework: X2-support, SON-support and backhaul-considerations – e.g. VLAN usage, QoS etc

Urban framework architecture


Macro-RANMacro-RNMacro-CN

• How SON helps load balancing across the HetNet

• Synchronization for LTE small cells

• Urban deployment scenarios: when established deployment methodologies still apply and when new models are required

• Urban backhaul solutions – details the mix of technologies and range of commercial models available

• Regulatory issues and urban deployments

• Urban service models and APIs

Other areas covered by Release Three


• Helps operators and vendors harness the significant potential of the urban small cell market

• Establishes a strong business case for urban small cells, even when deployed alongside macro and additional spectrum

• Clarifies drivers for the deployment of urban small cells

• Identifies barriers and shows how they can be addressed

• Shows how urban small cells are an essential component of future networks, delivering cost-effective capacity and deep in building coverage for public places

What Release Three aims to achieve


How to get involved:


Upcoming Events: • Small Cells Asia Conference and Plenary – Singapore, April 2014• Small Cell Forum/ETSI PlugFest, Orange Lab – Paris, June 2014• Small Cell World Summit and Industry Awards – London, June 2014• Small Cell Forum European Plenary - TBC September 2014• Small Cells Americas Conference and Plenary – Dallas, December 2014

Urban Small Cells - Gordon Mansfield MWC14 Small Cell Zone presentation

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