Enterprise Cells, Hotspot 2.0 Are Hot Topics

February 13, 2014

By Ernest Worthman…

Two topics that are really heating up in the small cell industry today are enterprise small cells and Hotspot 2.0. Carriers find these of great importance in the emerging carrier/Wi-Fi integration platform. Why? Because both address in-building non-residential wireless service, which will relieve pressure on congested outdoor macrocells, improving the voice and data quality and put the cell under the control of the carrier.

Worthman

This has all kinds of implications, but the biggest is a potential for new income streams for the carriers.

Hotspot 2.0 promises to enable carrier Wi-Fi because the new Hotspot 2.0 standard, which is expected to become the adopted protocol, can use the EAP-SIM protocol to register and authenticate smartphones on the network, using the SIM card without any need to enter data or passwords. Hotspot 2.0 promises user experiences similar to those of a roaming cellular network. Most of the latest smartphones (iPhone, Android etc.) already support this in their latest software updates as does most carrier-grade Wi-Fi access point technology.

Armed with these tools, carriers can go to the subscriber and offer a seamless, roaming data and voice package with excellent speed and bandwidth, once there are sufficient deployments of small cells to offer a substantial coverage area.

Enterprise small cells

Arriving on the scene of late is the enterprise small cell. In the early days it was mostly a Wi-Fi or DAS deployment across a closed campus but they are starting to evolve beyond that.

Enterprise small cells are intended to provide coverage to all or part of a floor of an office building or other indoor space. There are, of course, exceptions and they are occasionally found outdoors as well. They are generally deployed ubiquitously within buildings to provide blanket coverage and augment the macro network. With the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend, providing cellular and Internet coverage throughout offices is becoming crucial for many businesses. The emerging model of these cells is also a target of opportunity for carriers. If they can integrate Wi-Fi, DAS and cellular into a seamless network, the implications for market share and revenue are staggering. What makes this so attractive is that they are almost always connected to the infrastructure via Ethernet, as opposed to wireless, offering a wide pipeline for backhaul, and they cover areas that are generally in the macrocell void.

Ernest Worthman is the editor of Small Cells magazine. He can be reached at AGL Media Group