Deploying small cells in rural and remote areas could unlock a $163 billion opportunity for the world’s mobile operators.
This is according to research carried out by Realwi reless on behalf of the Small Cell Forum, which at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday put the number of people worldwide who would benefit from such rollouts at 650 million.
"It’s not niche," said Alan Law chair of the Small Cell Forum, at a press conference.
Indeed, the industry group believes rural and remote small cell deployments could add close to $1 trillion to the global economy, as companies based in isolated areas – at sea and down mines, for example – improve their productivity.
Small cells have some "special characteristics" that make them suitable for rural, remote, and humanitarian use, thanks to their diminutive size, light weight, lower power consumption than macro cells, and the ease and speed at which they can be set up, added Julius Robson, chair of the Small Cell Forum’s backhaul group.
The study coincided with the publication of the Small Cell Forum’s final use case document, which completes a body of work that also makes the case for small deployment in homes, urban environments and enterprises.
According to the Small Cell Forum’s latest figures, 2.3 million small cells were rolled out in 2014, almost half of them in North America.
However, "our job is by no means done," said Sue Monahan, CEO of the Small Cell Forum.
Indeed, the industry body will now turn its attention to the role that virtualisation can play in making the business case for small cells more compelling. It will also look at smarter self-organising network (SON) and WiFi integration, licence assisted access – where spectrum in both licensed and unlicensed bands is aggregated to increase throughput – and the role of small cells in the Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M) and 5G.
