Guest Column: Inside Small Cells

May 7, 2013

Ronny Haraldsvik,
Chief Marketing Officer,
SpiderCloud Wireless

— It is without doubt that we are seeing an explosion of interest in small cells from mobile operators, large infrastructure players and enterprise customers alike. There are many questions from the industry with regard to small cells. What is it? What defines a small cell? Small cells versus small-cell systems: when, where, and how?

How can we address the mobile data explosion with small cells? The industry has to rethink the use of in-building wireless. The macro cellular network simply cannot keep up with capacity usage, especially when most of the spectrum use comes from within buildings. The sober reality of small cells is that not all small cells are the same. The same when/where segmentation that took place in Wi-Fi more than a decade ago, is taking place for small cells. Mobile World Congress in Barcelona highlighted the need beyond just indoor coverage and capacity.

The fact is, that small cells are blurring of the lines of networks as well as the lines between enterprise and service provider Wi-Fi. The massive use of smartphones and mobile applications, have created major concerns with enterprise use of over-the-top (OTT) Services. Is this the “death of the desk phone?” Will enterprise IT look to operators for support to handle BYOD and other mobility issues, and consider mobility as a service? If they do, they are looking at potential savings of $60 billion in the next few years.

In a recent survey conducted by YouGov, almost half (47 percent) of the respondents reported interest in mobile device management as an operator-hosted service to manage, monitor, secure and support mobile devices in the enterprise, and 40 percent demonstrated an interest in Wi-Fi as a service from their operator.

Use of small cells can indeed give mobile operators an inside advantage with enterprise customers. We are entering years of mobility and agile network services delivered by communications providers. We are indeed starting to see the emergence of a new role for the mobile operators. Beyond basic coverage and capacity, this is a battle for apps and the cloud.

As we look to the 2020 services network – Enterprise customers will join in and mobile operators will help transition customers from a wireless world to a mobile world as we transition from “Outside-In to Inside-Out” network build-outs.

Haraldsvik rejoined SpiderCloud Wireless in June 2012 as senior vice president and CMO, having formerly served as VP Marketing July 2008 through 2010. Haraldsvik previously worked at BelAir Networks where he was Senior Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer (BelAir Networks acquired by Ericsson in April, 2012). A Silicon Valley veteran, Haraldsvik has more than 23 years of global strategic marketing and industry experience from a range of technology segments including radio access networks, small cells, Wi-Fi, web and video optimization, wireline networking and IP services, RFID, personal computing, wafer fabrication, software, and consumer devices. Haraldsvik holds a BA from the University of San Francisco.

http://www.spidercloud.com/