Small Cells Market Update 2022

A TMN PUBLICATION

The Mobile Network // www.themobilenetwork.com

// SMALL CELLS 2022

Making sense of the world’s mobile networks

N, A R n e n, Op o i t a s i l tua 5G, Vir etworks N Private ible – x e fl d en an p o , l a r 2022 Neut N I S L CEL SMALL

THE MOBILE NETWORK // ENDORSED BY SMALL CELL FORUM & SMALL CELLS WORLD SUMMIT ///////////////////////////

CONTENTS//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// MARKET UPDATE

03

A look at the key market drivers for small cells in 2022, including a shift from operator-led to neutral host and Open RAN. Plus 15 years of Small Cell Forum.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FLEXIBLE SILICON

06

Picocom’s Doug Pulley says that RAN diversity is about more than the number of vendors in the game.

ECOSYSTEM MOVES

08

From chip level innovation to new software, small cell ecosystem players in 2022 have reflected the changing demands of the market.

A JUDGE’S TALE

10

Over a decade’s worth of judging reveals how things have changed over the years, although one thing remains constant.

Small Cells Market Update is published

by TMN Communications Ltd.

Commercial Director: Shahid Ramzan // shahid@the-mobile-network.com

Hi! Hello and welcome to TMN’s Small Cells Update 2022. It is 12 short months since we last updated the market on small cells momentum. Looking back to our May 2021 Update, one main theme was that, with a couple of notable exceptions, it would not only be operator-led 5G deployments that led small cells forward. Instead tower companies and other owners were building business cases around neutral host deployments.

The Small Cell Forum was beginning to talk about Open 6, its branding for the DU-RU 3GPP split 6 that is supported by its FAPI and nFAPI interfaces. Vendors were addressing mmWave, massive MIMO and CBRS. This year, much of that continues. In our chat with Simon Fletcher, now Chief Strategy Officer at Small Cell Forum, we hear how, in his view, the Forum has changed its outlook to reflect the new reality of small cell deployment drivers.

In his view, the industry is now less reliant on mobile operator investment, with growing opportunities in private wireless and neutral host investment cases.

That theme is reflected too in my own look back at the changing nature of the Small Cell Awards, with the most hotly contested category this year being related to business model innovation.

However, our ecosystem round-up shows that 2022 has not so far seen a great many new product and feature announcements – certainly not to the level of a year ago. But that’s not necessarily bad news for the industry. Many vendors are pushing ahead with introductions of products announced last year, getting into operator trials and commercial deployments, and engaging with core network providers and enterprise-focussed partner programmes for private networks.

Enjoy the update and, if we’ve left you out, get in touch and we can make sure to highlight your contribution next time.

Editorial Director: Keith Dyer // keith@the-mobile-network.com Creative Direction and Design: Shona Gow // hello@shonagow.co.uk // www.shonagow.co.uk © 2022 TMN Communications Ltd.

KD

Keith Dyer keith@the-mobile-network.com

FEATURE: MARKET UPDATE

GOING OPEN, HEADING NEUTRAL As we round up the market deployments and developments in 2022, we see that Open RAN and neutral host models continue to dominate.

There’s no doubt that the two macro level trends influencing small cells development continue to be Open RAN and meeting the needs of, and enabling, an increasingly diverse deployment environment.

Open RAN is impacting small cells by introducing demands for disaggregated solutions that can fit into cloud and edge computing operating environments, allowing flexibility of choice for vRAN software units (DU/CU) and the radioantenna units.

The diverse deployment environment recognises that small cells, integrated or disaggregated and virtualised, can often meet niche requirements that may not be best met by a mobile operator-led deployment. So that could be an enterprise or private network, or a campus or hard to reach area that requires dedicated coverage. Or perhaps an ad-hoc or emergency network. Solutions may be required to combine a soft core network, radio access and edge comput to match a deployment model that might be led by a business owner, a real estate owner, a government entity or a third party that provides small cell infrastructure as a service.

Taking account of these trends means that developers, from the chipset and hardware developers, right up through the stack, need to be cognisant of solutions that can be deployed in an agile, flexible and open way. And as we enter 2022, these words now mean something and require more than lip service.

There have been several developments pointing to increased engagement around open and disaggregated small cells.

Turk Telecom is conducting an open vRAN pilot and trial that includes 4G small cells as part of the mix. The pilot will include 4G radio units (RUs), 4G small cells and 5G Massive MIMO RUs, testing Open vRAN in the Türk Telekom Innovation Center and in the field on pilot sites. Mavenir is providing the vRAN software and small cells for the pilot.

Staying with Mavenir, Mavenir and Vodafone have said that they have designed an Open RAN small cell product for business customers. The solution is intended to provide 4G coverage and capacity in medium to large venues. Vodafone said, “The simple plug and play installation means coverage can be instantly deployed, enabling seamless connectivity for every device in the office.”

The Vodafone product sees a combined Radio Unit and Distributed Unit (RU-DU) made by Sercomm, with Mavenir vRAN software running on the CU and the DU part of the combined RU-DU. The small cell architecture is based on 3GPP functional Split Option 2, rather than the Open 6 or 7.2 versions that the SCF and O-RAN Alliance have respectively specified.

TMN understands Sercomm is using Qualcomm’s FSM 9016 chipset for its design. That’s the small cell chipset that Sercomm used as it partnered with Altiostar to develop a vRAN small cell solution that went on to debut in Rakuten’s network in Japan.

In Rakuten’s case it said it would be able to migrate from the 4G small cell to 5G by updating the DU part of the build. Vodafone also said that the small cells would supply 4G “initially” – clearly hinting at a 5G upgrade path.

Rakuten, by the way, has shared that it has now deployed over 2,500 outdoor 4G small cells from Airspan, as well as nearly 130,000 enterprise and residential femtocells from Sercomm. As it builds its 5G network, it has deployed 13,500 RU-DUs from Airspan, products that are built on Qualcomms FSM100xx small cell chipset.

Telefónica validated an Open RAN all-inone 5G Standalone small cell with Node-H and Askey in its Technology & Automation Lab. The all-in-one 5G small cell, developed

by Askey, is based on Qualcomm’s FSM100 5G RAN Platform with Node-H’s RAN software. This small cell is a complete 5G base station that can be connected either directly to Telefónica’s macro network or to a local private 5G core. The modular architecture of the small cell logically separates the CU, DU and RU functionalities following open and standard interfaces.

3 TMN MARKET UPDATE

FEATURE: MARKET UPDATE

(Credit: Arm)

ARM 5G DEVELOPMENT

José Luis Esplá, Access and Devices Director, Telefonica, said, “With Telefónica’s open interfaces approach we are transforming the way connectivity and services are provided, with high flexibility and simplicity while ensuring the highest performance and efficiency.“ This trial shows how Open RAN development of small cells is not a technology project, but is intended to deliver solutions that meet business model requirements. In this case 5G SA private networks.

“The business case for 5G private networks has received a huge boost through advances in the regulatory framework”, said Mike Cronin, CEO of Node-H. “This has the potential to unleash a large amount of private investment in a technology which merits that expenditure, bringing true 5G performance to those who can benefit from it.”

In Germanu, O2/Telefónica Germany and NEC launched the first Open and virtual RAN architecture-based small cells in Germany. The service has initially launched in the city center of Munich, with NEC integrating a multi-vendor architecture that includes Airspan Networks’ Airspeed solution and Rakuten Symphony’s Open vRAN software for O2’s small cells, to complement the existing multi-vendor based macro cells in its network.

4 TMN MARKET UPDATE

O2 said that the adoption of Open RAN small cells combined with macro cells will pave the way for 5G densification.

In ecosystem terms, a significant development came as Arm opened a new 5G Solutions Lab, in partnership with Tech Mahindra. Small cells development formed one of three key areas for the programme.

Support for the Lab came across the ecosystem from cloud service providers like Google Cloud, silicon and hardware providers like EdgeQ, GIGABYTE, Marvell, NVIDIA, NXP, and Qualcomm, operators including DISH and Vodafone, and software partners such as Accelleran, Mavenir, Parallel Wireless, Radisys, Saankhya Labs, and Tech Mahindra.

Capgemini Engineering, Benetel, Ampere, Gigabyte, Phluido, and Arm have collaborated on a 5G network in a box for microcell deployments based on open RAN designs, while Baicells has introduced mmWave and sub 6GHz small cells based on Qualcomm silicon.

On the neutral host side, there has been similar momentum.

BAI Communications has been on something of a tear through late 2021 and into 2022. As well as a heavy recruitment drive, the infrastructure owner has been pushing on with its neutral host business model, with small cells often forming part of the connectivity mix. A project

in Sunderland, UK, included a 20-year strategic partnership with the city to design, build and operate a private 5G small cell network as part of a plan to create the UK’s “most advanced smart city.” The 5G network is expected to go live by Summer 2022. Subsidiary Mobilitie said it had deployed over 1,000 neutral host small cells to support LA’s hosting of the Super Bowl in 2022.

Betacom has launched a 5G as a Service model, that provides a private wireless solution as an end-to-end managed service.

The mode includes DAS, but also a CBRSbased small cell capability from Airspan, and use of Druid’s Raemis core.

Freshwave has signed a number of local council and building access agreements, and has mirrored BAI in its ability to sign up senior level MNO staff.

Crown Castle said it now has 115,000 small cells “on air or under contract” in the USA, making it one of the largest small cell operators around.

CEO Jay Brown said in his end of year results briefing, “ I believe 2022 will be an important transition year for our small cells … business. Our team is focused on scaling our small cell deployment capabilities so we can accelerate from what we expect to be approximately 5,000 small cell nodes installed this year to more than 10,000 per year starting in 2023 as we deliver on our record backlog of more than 60,000 small cell nodes.”

Other far more non-traditional deployment models that include small cells include Pollen and also Freedomfi.

Baicells has a small cell that is certified by Freedomfi for operation on the network that rewards hosts with tokens.

Pollen is marketing small cells from Calchip called the Elderflower and positions itself as “an alternative to the legacy mobile carriers, combining a blockchain-based rewards and payment system with a number of open source technologies.”

FEATURE: MARKET UPDATE

SMALL CELL FORUM AT 15 YEARS The Forum is 15 years old. What does it stand for now, where does it go next?

Simon Fletcher was appointed as SCF’s Chief Strategy Officer earlier in 2022. He says that the small cells agenda is changing, as the industry takes some of the “heavy lifting” away from mobile operators.

As Fletcher considers SCF’s priorities for the immediate future he looks back in time, to an event the Forum held in 2017 assembling a range of partners to address the future requirements of mobile networks.

At the time, the Forum was engaging with other standards bodies to try and get some alignment on thinking about how to structure “a standards-based, easily deployable, end-to-end HetNet that paves the way for 5G”. But one result of this, Fletcher says, was that it encouraged the thinking that the industry needed to see diversification through new deployment business models, such as neutral host, rather than expect the MNOs to do all the “heavy lifting” on deployment in all the niche applications and deployments.

The Forum said at the time, “The 5G Era will require increasing sophistication from mobile operators. Their challenge is to bring together a growing number of LTE and 5G radio access technologies and present them as a range of connectivity services with associated APIs to a number of customer segments, and for ongoing wealth creation through innovation.

“Enabling this evolution is a fully virtualised, distributed, ultra-reliable software controlled agile infrastructure, with automation to facilitate large-scale low-cost network densification through third-party deployments.”

This sort of thinking, that recognised the role that third party deployments would have, has increasingly informed the Forum’s engagement with and for a growing small cell deployment ecosystem - think BAI Communications, Freshwave, Denseair, Cellnex.

Mobile operators, Fletcher says, have by and large continued to have a macrofirst approach, and it has been others that have seen the value in unlocking business opportunities using small cells.

Accordingly, the direction of the small cell forum is being led less exclusively by the requirements of mobile operators, and reflects the evolution of the small cell offering.

Fletcher points to the UK’s JOTS as an example of a successful outcome, but adds that it doesn’t stop there. JOTS started to transform the way people are thinking, moving beyond neutral host in-building use cases to look at other options, like railways, and harder to cover areas outdoors.

“Building a solution that is trusted by the operators, that they are willing to put their services across, has always been a challenge.

There will be quite a bit of emphasis on the strengthening of the small cell offering, looking at a solution that is not too difficult to install, relatively commoditised with a good diversity of supplier solutions. After a bit of a slow burn we are beginning to quantify things like JOTS, which the SCF wouldn’t claim to have initiated, but it is starting to transform the way people are thinking.”

Another area that is mentioned in the 2017 policy re-set is the importance of open networks. “Effective integration of all these technologies can only be achieved with open and interoperable standards, which are also needed to ensure competition and economies of scale,” the SCF’s document said at the time.

Fletcher said that Open 6, the Forum’s name for its FAPI and nFAPI specifications, is gaining increasing support. Part of the objective will be to consolidate the understanding of that Open 6 ecosystem - who is part of the proposition? who should be? - and increasing understanding of users of the split 6. A couple of winning projects in the UK’s Open RAN FRANC competition feature are using FAPI, and Fletcher also welcomes chipset support for the split, increasing the supply of solutions for the OEMs building the solutions.

“The overarching narrative now is ‘macro demand leading to micro service delivery’. That means trying to keep a good understanding of what’s happening in the macro layer, and then informing that understanding as you get increased localisation and specialisation of deployments. So you get a thought process around the small cells and edge computing to ensure micro service delivery, making clear how it can be done.”

And that underlines a final priority for SCF at its 15 year birthday. It wants to concentrate on practical issues, to be thought-leading in the evolution of business models.

Fletcher says “Technology may be led at the bleeding edge of macro network innovation, but in terms of how you commoditise that, and evolve the business models to underpin that - where the national operators decide there isn’t a niche for them, then somebody else can step in and meet the need locally.”

5 TMN MARKET UPDATE

MARKET UPDATE: PARTNER FEATURE

7 things I know about…

HOW OPTIMISED SILICON CAN ENABLE A TRULY DIVERSE RAN

By Doug Pulley, Chief Solutions Architect, Picocom.

DIVERSITY INCREASE ON MANY PLANES… 2 W2E’RE 3 SEEING 4 Network 5 6 and 7 business requirements are becoming increasingly diverse.

1

RAN DIVERSITY ISN’T JUST 2 3 4 ABOUT MORE VENDORS…

5 various 6 7reasons, operators want to For see a wider choice of suppliers of mobile infrastructure. That has meant that most of the industry discussions about Open RAN have focussed on one outcome: increased vendor diversity. Our industry would benefit from a more diverse cast list of RAN actors, but there is much more to achieving diversity than seeing a few more names in the supply chain. Disaggregated RAN architectures enable a variety of deployment approaches that can help deliver the best user experience.

To use new spectrum resources, equipment must be flexible enough to support an increasing range of bands, from sub 1 GHz up to mmWave, from licensed to unlicensed, shared to dedicated bands, often presenting in different combinations in different countries. Network equipment must also support different generations of mobile networks, from 2G right through to 5G. To monetise 5G rollouts, operators are targeting the provision of services with differing latency and throughput requirements for different use cases. To meet those use cases, they face an increasing diversity of deployment environments and capacity demands, with indoor, dense urban, transport networks, and rural and suburban areas all presenting very different coverage and cost profiles. Finally, how mobile networks are funded, deployed, owned and operated is changing. With the advent and growth of neutral host models, managed network-as-a-service, and private networks in unlicensed shared and dedicated spectrum, equipment vendors must be aware of the need to be able to support a range of deployment architectures.

3 SMALL 2 3 CELLS 4 THEMSELVES ARE DIVERSE… Within 5 6the 7diverse fabric of a mobile network, small cells are often proposed as a solution to meet a few limited requirements and are often viewed as a homogenous product segment. But even within the small cells sector, there is a lot of diversity in features, capabilities and architecture. Whilst a small cell is merely a cell with a short coverage radius, features might include support for different spectrum bands, user numbers and power levels. Architectural diversity relates to

6 TMN MARKET UPDATE

how a disaggregated small cell implements functional splits for RAN processing - with associated fronthaul and backhaul requirements. Small cells are also being deployed in an increasingly diverse operational environment, such as private, neutral host or operator-provider enterprise networks. And 3GPP doesn’t sleep, there will only be more features and requirements on the roadmap. Therefore, small cell developers factor in all these variables.

MARKET UPDATE: PARTNER FEATURE

A DIVERSE ENVIRONMENT DEMANDS

FLEXIBLE SILICON SOLUTIONS

4 AN 2 EFFICIENT 3 4 RESPONSE Operators 5 6 7and their suppliers need to be able to meet

5 CAN 2 3PROVIDE 4 THE ANSWER… 5 feedback 6 7 we receive is that there needs to be silicon The

6 SILICON 2 3 4PLUS SOFTWARE DESIGN MEETS THE TASK…

CAN BE REAL… 7 RAN 2 3DIVERSITY 4 HERE’S HOW. 5 6 RAN 7 vendor diversity is a strategic driver for MNOs Achieving

those diverse requirements economically and efficiently.

Operators need a RAN that matches the environment, moulding itself to the world’s demands around it.

That means having access to solutions that can fit different network architectures, deployment situations and diverse use cases. These solutions themselves will rely on access to a diversity of optimised systems. Developers cannot design a different solution, end-to-end, for every instance, nor can they adopt a one-size-fits-all approach based on a rigid, inflexible subsystem.

5 can 6 enable 7 multiplying diversity by applying good We semiconductor economics. We empower new vendors to come in and design products based on an architecture with suitable interfaces that can support flexible solutions.

Supporting a higher or lower PHY split is an example: we use the same silicon to support the higher or lower split, differentiated through the specific software build.

That gives the system developer a common platform and the flexibility to meet the diverse demands of the industry.

available to enable a more diverse range of solutions that companies can mould to the service and deployment requirements. Typically, larger OEMs use their own silicon solutions, and these are unavailable to others that would seek to support the operators’ strategic desire for open networks. Our raison d’être has been architecting something that spans as many permutations as possible with one piece of silicon and still achieves the right cost point and low power you would expect of an optimised system-on-chip approach.

right now. Still, it must be underpinned by silicon solutions that allow vendors to provide optimised solutions at the right cost points and power consumption levels. By supporting a disaggregated and open architecture, flexible silicon solutions can underpin the end goal of vendor diversity.

Picocom has built and will continue to provide an optimised but flexible silicon and software solution to enable operators to satisfy their diverse network requirements and take advantage of a more diverse supplier market.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Doug has over 30 years of experience in the wireless technology industry. As CTO, he co-founded Picochip, the pioneer behind ‘processors for femtocells/small cells’.

FIND OUT MORE https://picocom.com/products/socs/pc802/

7 TMN MARKET UPDATE

FEATURE: VENDOR MOVES

ECOSYSTEM U P DAT E The key vendor moves from acros the ecosytem in 20, as private networks and Open RAN continues to drive innovation from chip level acros the software stack.

ACCELERCOMM

AIRSPAN

BAI

A software specialist with a channel coding solution for the L1 PHY layer that is designed to increase spectrum efficiency, AccelerComm joined Small Cell Forum in January 2022. It said at the time that it wanted to contribute “technical and commercial enablers to accelerate small cell adoption.” Its solution can be integrated in small cell chip hardware - either ASICs or FPGA - or as software.

AccelerComm is not exclusively targeting small cells as a sector, but clearly sees value in contributing to the segment as it also aligns with OpenRAN developments and its ability to reduce the cost of building OEM cellular solutions.

Airspan is most notably contributing its small cells to Rakuten in Japan. The operator has deployed over 13,000 of its 2021 Small Cell Awards winning mmWave DRU (a combined RU-DU) in its 5G network.

The small cell is based on Qualcomm’s FSM100xx. Rakuten has also deployed 2,600 4G small cells from the company to boost capacity in hotspots. Aispan also got a win, via RakutenSymphony, with a small cell deployment with O2 Telefonica Germany that forms part of its OpenRAN live trials. That deployment included providing software and management system for the small cells.

The company IPO’d via a SPAC in mid 2021, and aside from its OpenRAN-based engagements it is addressing the CBRS opportunity for a series of use cases, including private networks. In the private networks space it has also made market tie-ups with core providers such as Druid and Athonet, and with ecosystem programmes such as Cisco’s Private5G Programme and Qualcomm’s Private Networks RAN Automation Platform.

BAI Communications has been on something of a tear through late 2021 and into 2022. As well as a heavy recruitment drive, the infrastructure owner has been pushing on with its neutral host business model, with small cells often forming part of the connectivity mix. A project in Sunderland, UK, included a 20-year strategic partnership with the city to design, build and operate a private 5G small cell network as part of a plan to create the UK’s “most advanced smart city.”

The 5G network is expected to go live by Summer 2022.

8 TMN MARKET UPDATE

FEATURE: VENDOR MOVES

BENETEL

PICOCOM

VERANA NETWORKS

Benetel introduced the RAN650 which is aimed at use cases such as private, campus and industrial networks, as well as rural networks and public hotspots. A 4T4R antenna arrangement is featured with up to 5W of output power being delivered per antenna port (equating to 20W in total, so a top end microcell, say).

The RU supports a 7.2x functional split and can be deployed in either a Cat A or Cat B based configuration (using selected distributed units). Each RU incorporates an Intel Arria 10 FPGA alongside an Analog Devices’ ADRV9029 4T4R transceiver with integrated digital pre-distortion (DPD).

The initial version of the RAN650 covers the n77u (3.7GHz to 4.2GHz) frequency range. An n78 variant (3.3GHz to 3.8GHz) will be made available in the second quarter of 2022.

The UK-based company was able to take its small cell silicon, the PC802 small cell PHY SoC, to MWC in Barcelona for its first showcase. It has since announced a design win with BLiNQ Networks, which will use Picocom silicon and software in its new 5G Open RAN small cell distributed unit (DU) board.

Verana Networks is a mmWave small cells start up that announced Series B funding of $28 million in 2022, bringing its total funding to $43 million.

The company’s COO Amit Jain told TMN that it is developing an outdoor 5G small cell product with the aim of reducing the total cost of deployment of 5G mmWave.

Verana started product development about two years ago and the company currently has a system it can demo at its own location.

“We plan to take it out for customer trials later this year,” Jain said. And he set a target of having a commercially available product

by Q2 2023.

As a systems developer, the company is working with “established chipset partners”, building hardware, licensing different pieces of software, to deliver a complete commercialised solution, Jain said.

Verana was founded by, amongst others, CEO Vedat Eyuboglu, formerly CTO of small cells at Commscope after that company’s acquisition of Airvana, which he also co-founded. Sundar Sankaran, Vice President of Engineering, is also ex-Commscope, where he headed the Ruckus business, and before that was at Qualcomm Atheros. Jain, also a cofounder, was formerly of small cells players Spidercloud (bought by Corning) and Airvana. The company currently has 75 employees, is headquartered in the USA, with a large development capability in India.

MAVENIR Mavenir introduced a range of Open RAN RUs that are intended to act as reference manufacturing designs in the market.

A 4T/4R, 5W per output version as included in the range, providing a micro RU for Open RAN deployments.

NODE-H Node-H and T&W, a Chinese vendor created an All-in-One 5G Standalone Enterprise Small cell. The companies announced in February 2022 that the cell has been interoperability tested with a number of core networks.

T&W has developed the All-in-One 5G Enterprise Small cell using Qualcomm’s 5G FSM100 System-on-a-chip technology and Node-H’s scalable 5G CU and DU software.

QUALCOMM Telefónica and Qualcomm said they had validated an “all-in-one” 5G standalone small cell powered by Qualcomm’s RAN platform.

The small cell was created by Askey, a Taiwan-based design and manufacturer, and Node-H (see above), which provided RAN, security and management software.

The O-RAN-compliant node is based on Qualcomm’s FSM100 5G RAN platform, with separate CU, DU and RU functions connected using open interfaces.

RADISYS Korean small cells player Qucell Networks is using Radisys’ Connect RAN gNodeB software for a 5G small cell design that it says is already being trialled “in multiple operators’ networks across the globe.”

Radisys also saw its small cell software package selected by Celona for a private 5G solution.

Radisys’ Connect RAN 5G supports 3GPP Release 16 features and also supports the FAPI and nFAPI specifications from the Small Cell Forum (SCF), with the flexibility of Opt-2 and Opt-6 functional splits. The company said that it is also performance optimsed for ARM based SoC.

9 TMN MARKET UPDATE

FEATURE: A JUDGE‘S TALE

A JUDGE’S TALE Keith Dyer looks back at the small cell awards, and finds that as well as “celebrating success”, they also chart small cells development pretty well.

You always remember the first time.

I can’t remember how many times I have been a judge for the Small Cell Awards, but I do remember joining my first judges’ call - it must be over a decade ago - and being surprised to hear a vigorous debate ensue over the intricacies of a vendor’s support for a management protocol. This was followed by a pretty fierce dust-up over whether a distributed antenna connected to a pooled RF baseband was a small cell at all. On it went, with judges disputing a vendor’s claimed commercial momentum, and agreeing to park issues until a second scheduled call.

You see, other awards shortlisting processes aren’t quite like this. On other awards, judges are given a big scoresheet of entries and asked to fill it in, and then the scores go forward and there’s a winner. Sometimes there’s even a dispute over who won as a result. It’s a bit more opaque, a bit more insipid.

10 TMN MARKET UPDATE

At the Small Cell Awards, even in its current slightly more slimmed down, post-lockdown, version, judges should expect to be (politely) challenged on any positions they hold. Winners are far from rubber stamped. Judges want to make sure that winners are deserving and that the unlucky get acknowledged as such.

There’s also enough knowledge on the panel to know when an entry is cashing cheques that would be liable to bounce if the vendor were ever called to honour them. So it is a bit of fun with a drink at the end of it all, but it also tells us a bit about the industry as a whole.

What grabbed me as I looked back at previous notes I made is that the Awards serve as a pretty handy marker for where small cells have come from, and where they are at right now.

Aside from the obvious, such as the support for 4G and then 5G, the awards have changed to reflect differing priorities of small cell advocates.

Go back a few years and there would be maybe 10-12 entries in a category

such as small cell software, with vendors vying for the best SON implementation, or interference cancellation algorithm, or even a piece of RF planning software (OK, so that last one still seems to be contested). There would be a host of vendors competing in the best product category, consisting of a clutch of start ups, all the main established equipment manufacturers, plus one or two WiFi access point vendors trying their luck.

However, the awards have reflected ongoing change in the industry. This year, there are three awards that reward success in commercial deployment. In other words, there’s a recognition that this isn’t only a technology competition but what matters is who is actually getting the job done for their customers. Interestingly, some of the biggest deployments were related to specific events (such as the Qatar world cup or the Super Bowl), and they also involved in at least one case the most established of vendors.

In 2022, the most competitive model innovation, where CBRS and neutral host

FEATURE: A JUDGE‘S TALE

2022 SHORTLIST 1

Excellence in commercial deployment by an MNO

7

• Ericsson and Ooredoo • Mavenir and Vodafone UK • Rakuten Mobile and Airspan Networks 2

loomed large, and in the development of private network deployments.

That speaks to a move away from the reliance on mobile operators to deploy small cells, and provide the chief driver for investment cases.

As for the future, I would expect to see that narrative around private networks and/or neutral host continue.

Another area to look for an increased focus is on technical enablers for disaggregated small cells, or those tagged Open RAN, which there wasn’t so much of this year, perhaps surprisingly.

It also seems likely we will see more innovation at the chip level as vendors other than Qualcomm make a play within the sector.

Whichever way the awards head from here, I would urge those reading this to get their entries submitted to the 2023 version. The process of celebrating your achievements is a good discipline in itself, as you assess your own impact and strengths. And you know, if nothing else, that if you do win, it will be deserved.

3

4

Excellence in commercial deployment by neutral host • Boingo Wireless • Mobilitie • Wireless Infrastructure Group Excellence in commercial deployment by a private network operator • Airspan Networks and Druid Software • Betacom • Boingo Wireless

6

Outstanding software and services technology for small cells, in commercial use • Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) • Inorsa • ITRI and PEGATRON Outstanding contribution to emerging technology or architecture • Celona • Mavenir • Jio Platforms (JPL)

Outstanding contribution to new small cell business cases • Betacom • Crown Castle • Qualcomm Technologies, Inc

9

10

Outstanding small cell technology in commercial use • Corning Inc and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc • Ericsson • Jio Platforms (JPL)

5

8

Outstanding innovation in chips or components to enable small cell networks • Picocom • Rakon

11

12

Commercial product or service to enable multi-operator and neutral host business models • Cellnex Ireland • Ericsson Outstanding contribution to Small Cell Open RAN platforms or standards development • ITRI and PEGATRON • Radisys • STL Social Impact – Promoting Small Cells for Social / Economic / Environmental Development • BAI Communications and Sunderland City Council • BT Wholesale (BTW) • Freshwave and Virgin Media O2 Judges choice • Boingo Wireless •C orning Inc and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. • Rakon Small Cells World Summit 2022 takes place in London, on 24 May 2022

11 TMN MARKET UPDATE

Join SCF today and help shape the future of tomorrow’s networks As a not-for-profit, international organization, membership is open to vendors, operators and other deployers engaged in the development of small cell related products, services or content.

Our members are working together to drive solutions and innovations which shape future networks, today. Topics of focus include: • Clarifying and enabling the role of small cells in C-V2X • A global framework for Hosted Open RAN networks

• Establishing global best practice and blueprints for small cell-

enabled private networks • Enhancing FAPI, nFAPI and Open fronthaul to provide practical options

smallcellforum.org | scf.io @SmallCell_Forum info@smallcellforum.org

for Open RAN deployments

These issues are not just important; they are mission-critical – and delivering solutions that avoid fragmentation requires the engagement of the broadest ecosystem.

We have a range of membership packages available:

Executive board member: £17,750 Full member: £9,500 Pre-commercial: £2,000† For details, please contact: memberservices@smallcellforum.org Full membership for start–ups and businesses that can demonstrate annual gross revenues of less than $500,000.

Prices shown are for annual membership 2022/23 and are subject to VAT where applicable.

Small Cell Forum Ltd is registered in the UK no. 6295097.

†