Ubiquisys, a developer of 3G and LTE intelligent cells, today announced its collaboration with Texas Instruments to develop a new generation of small cells designed to meet the strong growth in mobile data consumption. The cells will combine TI’s carrier-grade infrastructure solutions with Ubiquisys’ adaptive and self-organizing capabilities based on commercially proven small cell networks. The result is an adaptive small cell that provides maximum performance and capacity with minimum cost of ownership, it says.
Mobile service providers are preparing for sustained and unprecedented growth in mobile data consumption, driven by smartphones, tablets and dongles. Macrocell augmentation, spectrum additions and LTE provide some of the extra capacity, but most of the load will be shouldered by a major proliferation in public small cells. By creating a much denser mobile network closer to the point of use, users will experience data performance that approaches headline rates.
Dual-mode WCDMA/LTE small cells have a number of advantages. They provide a smooth migration to LTE, whilst providing the near-term need for WCDMA capacity and maintaining support for voice services. There are also significant power consumption and Capex advantages over separate systems.
The collaboration will fuel a new range of dual-mode WCDMA/LTE small cells for public space and metro environments, such as base stations designed for mounting on walls or street furniture, with performance up to 150Mbps LTE plus 64 calls/84Mbps WCDMA. The first products will be available in 1H 2012.
These cells dynamically complement the macro network, adapting to changes and autonomously forming Self-Organizing Networks (SON). They use commodity internet connections to reach the mobile core network. The combination of intelligence and flexibility is claimed to dramatically reduces deployment and operational costs.
“Our infrastructure System-on-Chips (SoCs), based on our unique KeyStone multicore architecture, set new standards in combining processing power, economics and system energy savings,” said Brian Glinsman, general manager, communications infrastructure, Texas Instruments. “Through our collaboration with Ubiquisys we are creating the blueprint for the small cell revolution.”
“Today we mark the true start of the small cell era,” said Chris Gilbert, CEO Ubiquisys. “The combination of macro-class performance with small cell intelligence changes the economics of mobile data, and creates the building blocks for future mobile networks.”