Alcatel-Lucent has added Argent Associates, Colt Technology Services, DecisionOne, Eiffage Energie, Mastec, Md7 and Syscom Telecom to its small cell Site Certification Program.

The addition of new member companies will assist mobile service providers to quickly deploy small cells to enhance coverage. New members will increase support for outdoor small cell deployment while adding expertise to solve the challenges related to indoor deployment in the workplace, said Alcatel-Lucent.

In-building market opportunity is growing to $9.4 billion in 2020 from $4.3 billion in 2014. The In-building market penetration today is less than 10 percent.

Alcatel-Lucent focuses on boosting coverage in dense urban areas and large venues such as shopping centers and outdoor stadiums. Alcatel-Lucent claims that it has tripled the number of program members since launch.

The program provides access to over one million sites in North America, Central and Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“The in-building market is an untapped opportunity for mobile operators. With people using their own devices at work and more acceptance of BYOD, enterprises have the opportunity to move to the Mobile Office, using their IT infrastructure for mobile communications and removing legacy land lines,” said Jim Cocito, senior vice president, Wireless Services, Alcatel-Lucent.

Alcatel-Lucent claims that it has more than 130 small cell contracts spanning more than 78 operators in 54 countries after launching the service in December 2013.

The Alcatel-Lucent Site Certification Program aims to help telecom service providers accelerate small cells deployments, reducing deployment time by 30-40 percent in terms of site acquisition and building lease and power and backhaul access and lowering deployment costs by at least 20 percent by leveraging the program members’ cell site assets.

Baburajan K
[email protected]