Unexpected Players Flow into Small Cell Space

August 13, 2014

By Ernest Worthman —

August 12, 2014 — Google says it doesn’t want to be an operator, but somehow they are right there in the trenches. No matter what they say, they have been quietly investing in wireless technologies for some time now. It seems that their ultimate goal is to extend low-cost Internet access to the whole world, and making it easier for those with access to increase their usage.

The pure play angle in this for Google is simply boosting its advertising and services revenues – and they will do whatever it takes to accomplish that.

For the near future, look for a string of acquisitions as Google strengthens its position. To wit, the acquisition of 60 GHz start-up Alpental Technologies, last May but just revealed. The start-up has developed a small cell solution for the 60-GHz spectrum band, expected to be an important element of next-generation access and backhaul networks.

This is set to pose a serious threat to the entrenched operators.

In the Google view, low-cost, automated and flexible networks in unlicensed spectrum are important to support innovation and wrest control of wireless access away from the major operators – so it has taken interest and investment in WiMAX, public Wi-Fi, and more recently balloons and satellites. It will be important for the search giant to influence the next wave of networks, because it needs the emerging standards to suit its business case.

60 GHz and Climbing

Sixty gigahertz technologies are being eyed as a major player in small cell architectures. They are already the basis of the WiGig standard, which effectively brings Wi-Fi to high frequencies for personal area networking and dense metrozones; and to several small-cell backhaul approaches. Such millimeter-wave spectrum is expected to be central to next-generation mobile standards – early movers are experimenting with 50 GHz and above, even up to 250 GHz, because these bands can support very small cells for dense meshes that could underpin hyper-dense urban networks or systems for the Internet of Things/Everything.
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Ernest Worthman is the editor of Small Cell magazine.