CES: Small cell deployment on the agenda

5G mobile technology groups – Small Cell Forum (SCF) and 5G Americas – have worked together on tech papers to support the deployment of small cells.

The reports, Small Cell Siting: Regulatory and Deployment Considerations and Multi-Operator and Neutral Host Small Cells: Drivers, Architectures, Planning and Regulation, are hoped to simplify the planning and regulatory issues associated with the dense Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) deployments that will be typical in our 5G mobile future.

The reports state:

“It is the goal of the organizations to help eliminate potential roadblocks and mitigate challenges that may slow the process of successful small cell deployments. The deployment of millions of additional small cell sites in itself will be a monumental challenge in light of current regulation policy and the costs often associated with the traditional cell siting infrastructure.”

Small cell basestation shipments are predicted to double from about 4 million in 2016 to nearly 10 million in 2020 for enterprise, SoHo, rural, residential and urban deployments, according to a 2016 forecast by analyst firm Mobile Experts.

The small cell siting guide focuses on expediting the delivery of dense HetNets, outlining ways in which the many stakeholders involved can cooperate to fulfil the maximum potential of small cells.

It also aims to raise awareness among the stakeholders, including equipment producers, operators, integrators, policy makers, and local administrations that are involved in the approval, acceptance and roll out of the small cells layers of the mobile networks.

In the multi-operator and neutral host small cells white paper seeks to address some of the most common deployment barriers, outlining existing solutions and pointing to emerging ones; as well as highlighting lessons that can be learned from Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) and Wi-Fi.

David Orloff, Chair of Small Cell Forum, writes: