The Small Cell Forum announced the release of Release Three, which focuses on establishing urban small cells as an essential part of future mobile networks. Release Three addresses key issues for deploying urban small cells such as evaluating the business case, identifying capacity and coverage as main drivers, and addressing concerns over backhaul, site acquisition, and monetization. A survey of operators found that capacity densification, improving coverage, and reducing data costs are the top drivers for urban small cell deployment, while deployment challenges, monetization, management, and backhaul were cited as the main barriers. Release Three provides new documents that evaluate the market drivers and business case for urban small cells and propose architectures, use cases, and solutions to common challenges.

1. Small Cell Forum
Mobile World Congress
24-27 February 2014

2. The Small Cell Forum
• To accelerate small cell adoption to change the shape of mobile networks
and maximise the potential of the mobile internet
Aims
• Ecosystem development
• Not-for-profit, founded in 2007
• Market education
• Independent, inclusive, international
• Driving open standards
66 operators covering 3 billion global mobile
subscribers – 44% of total
76 providers of small cell technology representing
all parts of the ecosystem

3. 2013 at a glance
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

4. Our Release program: how it works
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

5. Announced today!
Release Three: Urban foundations
• Release Three shows urban small cells are an essential component of future
networks in delivering cost-effective capacity and deep in building coverage for
public places.
• Operators cite capacity densification as their main driver, and backhaul, optimal site
acquisition and monetization as their key concerns. We address all these issues and
more in Release Three.
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

6. What we mean by urban
• Urban small cells are cells deployed by
operators in areas of high demand density
on an open-access basis to all the customers
of the operator.
• They can be deployed outdoors on street
furniture or indoor public locations such as
transport hubs and retail malls.
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

7. 2014 operator survey:
Most valuable Release content
Business case (45)
Best practice and case studies (40)
Reference scenarios (36)
Deployment guidelines (33)
Backhaul recommendations (33)
Network architecture (28)
Procurement guidelines (24)
White papers & market studies (24)
Standards update (20)
Regulatory details (17)
Source: Maravedis-Rethink Global Operator Survey, Jan 2014
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

8. 2014 operator survey:
Top drivers to deploy urban small cells
• New revenues from
value added
services
• Fill capacity holes
• Reduce cost of data
70
% of respondents
• Improve capacity
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
• Improve coverage
1
2
3
4
Source: Maravedis-Rethink survey of tier one and two mobile operators worldwide, January 2014
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

9. 2014 operator survey:
Perceived barriers to urban deployments
• Deployment/
site acquisition
• Monetization
• Management
70
% of respondents
• Backhaul
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
27.5
17.5
17.5
10
10
10
5
2.5
0
0
1
2
3
Source: Maravedis-Rethink survey of tier one and two mobile operators worldwide, January 2014
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

10. Announced Today!
Release Three: Urban foundations
• Urban small cells are at an earlier stage in their commercial development than their
more mature residential and enterprise counterparts.
• Release Three focuses on establishing the need, evaluating the business case and
identifying key barriers to commercial deployment.
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

11. What’s in Release Three?
New documents
Revised documents
• Urban Small Cells: Release overview
• Market status statistics
• Market drivers for urban small cells
• Small cell and Wi-Fi coverage study
• Business case for urban small cells
• Deployment issues for enterprise
small cells
• Urban SON use cases
• Urban small cell network architectures
• Next generation hotspot-based integrated small cell Wi-Fi
• Regulatory aspects of small cells
• Backhaul for urban small cells: a topic brief
• SCF Release structure and roadmap
• Small cells, big ideas
• Market status statistics Q1 2014 –
Mobile Experts
• Deployment issues for urban small cells
• Small cell services in the urban environment
• Small cell application programmers’ guide
• LTE eNB L1 API definition
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

12. Identified four operator market
drivers for urban small cells
Source: Real Wireless
While capacity enhancement is the leading market driver today, for some operators enhanced coverage depth will be a major driver
User experience enhancement drives additional upside for users and may ultimately lead to greater small cell volumes than capacity
Venue-based urban small cells can also benefit from additional services: such as retail analytics
We commissioned an independent analysis of the business case for Urban small cells from Real Wireless, a leading UK-based
wireless advisory firm

13. Case study aligned with market drivers
Outdoor urban small cells
Capacity-driven case study in urban
area yields:
• Benefits of $48.6m (present value)
• Total cost of ownership of $29.8
million
• Positive net present value for
operators of $28m
• Return on Investment of 136%.
Coverage-driven case study yields:
• Operator without low-frequency
spectrum can achieve equivalent
coverage and produce cost savings
$2.8m-$7.2m
• User experience also enhanced with
substantial user and operator financial
benefits
Indoor urban small
cells
City centre
railway station
• Small cells meet the
capacity needs of
hyperdense indoor
environments
• Yields low incremental cost
of capacity: 0.3-2.3 US
cents per GB
Source: Real Wireless

14. Urban framework architecture
• Architectural domains: Small cell RAN, macro RAN, backhaul transport and operator core network
• Sub architectural framework: X2-support, SON-support and backhaul-considerations – e.g. VLAN
usage, QoS etc
Macro-RAN
Macro-RN
Macro-CN
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

15. Other areas covered by Release Three
• How SON helps load balancing across the HetNet
• Synchronization for LTE small cells
• Urban deployment scenarios: when established deployment methodologies still
apply and when new models are required
• Urban backhaul solutions – details the mix of technologies and range of commercial
models available
• Regulatory issues and urban deployments
• Urban service models and APIs
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

16. What Release Three aims to achieve
• Helps operators and vendors harness the significant potential of the urban small
cell market
• Establishes a strong business case for urban small cells, even when deployed
alongside macro and additional spectrum
• Clarifies drivers for the deployment of urban small cells
• Identifies barriers and shows how they can be addressed
• Shows how urban small cells are an essential component of future
networks, delivering cost-effective capacity and deep in building coverage for
public places
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014

17. How to get involved:
Upcoming Events:
• Small Cells Asia Conference and Plenary – Singapore, April 2014
• Small Cell Forum/ETSI PlugFest, Orange Lab – Paris, June 2014
• Small Cell World Summit and Industry Awards – London, June 2014
• Small Cell Forum European Plenary - TBC September 2014
• Small Cells Americas Conference and Plenary – Dallas, December 2014
© Small Cell Forum Ltd 2014