Small cells play a rather important role in the growing mobile data market. As mobile data traffic increases with the adoption of smartphones, carriers are using mobile data offloading, and small cells have a lot to do with making it all work well. ABI Research (News - Alert) says that small cells have a promising future in public venue; in fact, they are expecting to see a net worth of $3.1B by 2018.

“With the rapid growth in mobile traffic and data demand shifting to low mobility locations—the majority of them indoors—mobile operators are closing the gap between capacity and demand with solutions ranging from the traditional active and passive distributed antenna systems (DAS) to Carrier Wi-Fi, and this emerging category of public venue small cells,” said Nick Marshall, principal analyst, mobile networks in a statement.  

For large public venues like hospitals, college and corporate campuses, sports venues, convention centers and the like, small cells are identified as the go-to solutions capable of scaling more capacity indoors.

“Public venue small cells deployed by mobile network operators offer access directly where it is needed at a lower cost than macrocells or DAS systems and will improve the QoS at a lower TCO than other methods of extending open access to public areas,” adds Marshall.

Taqua (News - Alert) provides small cell backhaul as part of its mobile solutions, which provides connectivity to any vendor's small cell through its Taqua W-Series of Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) Backhaul Systems. Taqua’s small cell core simultaneously supported indoor small cells (also known as femtocells) to deliver coverage and capacity within residential and business locations. Its small cells offer carriers an efficient deployment option that enhances existing networks.

The recent resurgence in interest in these small cells is being driven primarily by market demand for higher network capacity to host existing and new data services. Small cell technology holds tremendous promise in providing a good solution to perpetual growth in demand for network capacity.

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