Small cells are low-powered radio access points that improve indoor and outdoor coverage to increase capacity and offload traffic - as much as 80% during peak times. Alcatel-Lucent, one of the leading femtocell companies, offers the 9360 portfolio of small cells. The portfolio consists of a full range of access points deployable in the home, enterprise and metro environments, a femtocell gateway, and a femtocell management solution. The Alcatel-Lucent 9360 Small Cells solution dramatically improves your subscriber quality of experience (QoE) no matter where users are located, and increases 3G cellular coverage and capacity at a lower total cost when compared to traditional macro.
Alcatel-Lucent holds 25 mobile operator commercial femtocell deployment agreements and is supporting more than 20 trials. Publicly announced customers include: Telefonica in Spain, Etisalat and du in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), MegaFon in Russia, and Vodafone Group, who selected Alcatel-Lucent as its preferred vendor for nationwide “Sure Signal” femtocell services in the UK and New Zealand.
At Mobile World Congress 2011, Alcatel-Lucent extended the reach of its 9360 Small Cells portfolio with the addition of the 9363 & 9364 Metro Cell to increase network coverage and capacity in public spaces – both indoors and outdoors. Alcatel-Lucent metro cell access points
Alcatel-Lucent offers an unrivalled end-to-end portfolio that includes innovation from Bell Labs such as support systems for customer care and self-organizing networks (SON). SON empowers small cells to automatically configure at power up. It also enables them to periodically monitor, update and optimize their neighbour relation lists and handover parameters – thus reducing handover failures by up to 80%. Using SON technology, Alcatel-Lucent small cells continuously adjust transmit power to the surrounding environment to deliver the best possible coverage. Bell Labs studies have found that its SON features translate to a 20 percent CAPEX savings and 50 percent OPEX savings.
The Alcatel-Lucent Small Cells solution enables new, innovative service offerings by providing APIs that easily integrate with applications. Research findings across five countries in North America, Europe and Asia show substantial opportunities in the small cells market. Read the White Paper Small Cells Technology Fuels New Consumer Market Opportunities.
These services are offered more economically when compared to macro cells because small cells do not suffer from large capital investment, cumbersome legal restrictions, or costly maintenance. This allows a total cost advantage (TCO) of between 65 to 90 percent². To understand more about the business case for residential small cells please read The business case for residential small cells as part of a High Leverage Network
While small cells benefit 3G service deployments, their importance will only grow as the industry moves towards higher capacity 4G / LTE, especially in urban environments.
To learn more about how Alcatel-Lucent can help you, please Contact Us. Be sure to discover the latest small cell / femtocell discussion at www.wilson-street.com.
¹ “U.S. Consumer Attitudes on In-Home Mobile Services and Femtocells”, Parks Associates, June 2010
² Bell Labs Analysis. Actual percentages depend on situation analysis and traffic assumptions.
For more information, contact us on +33 (0)1 4076 10 10 or email us at execoffice@alcatel-lucent.com
