AT&T Will Focus on Small Cell Deployment Throughout 2014

For the last year, AT&T has been working on their small cell and DAS technology that will allow the company to provide capacity in densely populated areas where a macro cell site just wouldn’t work. According to GIGAOM, “After a year of testing small cells in every way imaginable, AT&T is ready to begin its large-scale rollout of the technology. The tiny base stations will boost bandwidth in the high-demand places with surgical precision. The man in charge of the rollout, AT&T Associate VP of Small Cells Gordon Mansfield, has been testing out small cells from numerous vendors in every configuration imaginable. He’s mounted them to walls, on ceilings and hung them off utility poles. Continue reading here. 

Boingo Wireless Believes in The Power of DAS and Small Cells

Nick Hulse is the President of Boigo Wireless, who is the largest operator of airport wireless networks, and knows how important it is to be able to connect to a wireless signal wherever you are. Boingo has 5,600 DAS Nodes in North America from the Lincoln Tunnel in New York to Lincoln, Nebraska. But how exactly can Boingo help you? “When the business model for wireless changes from paid to a hybrid of some paid and some free or just to a free network, we bring in our ad team and help the venue bring in revenue to help with the costs,” Hulse explained.

This wireless technology is providing companies with so much useful data so they are able to better tailor their customer experience. Hulse explained that this technology is being used to see how long it takes people to get through the TSA lines in an airport. Heat maps are also able to give the airports insight into when they should stock the bathrooms and how many TSA lines they should have open at certain times of the day. “There has never been a more important time for small cells in the industry,” Hulse said. “We are battling the device issues and the capacity demands.”

According to Hulse, Wi-Fi is the leading connectivity solution for personal electronics and there are more Wi-Fi based devices coming out than ever before. It is projected that over 10 billion devices will be shipped by the end of 2015. With the increase in wireless devices, it’s no surprise that consumer behavior is adapting. Hulse reported that there was more digital media daily than TV in 2013 and mobile video is expected to grow 16 times more by 2017. Since the game has changed, layered architectures are needed. Hulse believes that there is a lot of work ahead of us to create a seamless, secure, and cost efficient network.