Telecom Lead Europe: Telefonica UK has selected Ruckus
Wireless to supply small cell products for offering high-speed wireless services
in London.
Telefonica UK has already deployed Ruckus SmartCell 8800s
areas in central London, such as Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square, Leicester
Square, Regent Street and Oxford Street to provide free Wi-Fi to anyone.
The SmartCell 8800, the first carrier-grade, modular
multi-radio system, supports high-speed dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, small cell
3G/4G radios and 5GHz wireless backhaul. Telefonica UK will have the
flexibility to economically offer Wi-Fi and cellular services in specific
locations when needed.
“Our vision is for Wi-Fi to be simply another access
layer to our mobile core. Customers don’t really care about the underlying
technology; they care about getting connected, fast and reliably. The
introduction of small cells helps us to support these requirements and
completely complements our mobile strategy by letting us push capacity closer
to users in locations where it makes the most sense,” said Derek McManus,
chief operating officer for Telefonica UK.
“A big barrier in small cell deployment is simply
securing the physical locations with the requisite power and backhaul to
support small cells. Once physical assets secured, it becomes important for
operators to exploit them with as much technology as they can. This means
multi-function, carrier-grade products that are simple deploy, unobtrusive and
massively scalable. SmartCell is one of those products and O2 is one of those
operators taking a lead in this race,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO
of Ruckus Wireless.
Telefonica UK eliminates backhaul traffic issues by
meshing traffic over 5 GHz Wi-Fi mesh links between nodes using Ruckus Smart
Mesh technology. Smart Mesh uses self-organizing network (SON) principles with
adaptive antenna arrays and predictive channel management techniques.
Ruckus said its Smart Mesh technology offers a
cost-effective, reliable and flexible alternative to conventional approaches.
Small cells enable operators to provide a premium quality
mobile signal where it was never previously economic, such as indoor environments
and remote outdoor locations. They also enable operators to meet the burgeoning
demand for mobile data, by multiplying the data capacity of the macro network
at a fraction of the cost.
Ruckus SmartCell system enables mobile operators to gain
capacity boost from LTE small cells, cutting costs and complexity by
co-locating and combining them with Wi-Fi access points, sharing site-lease
agreements and backhaul.
The integration of Wi-Fi and LTE small cells within the
cellular core also helps operators optimize network utilization across the
radio access network, providing a further improvement in performance, and
creating a seamless experience for subscribers.
