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Improved coverage and capacity within enterprises are key goals as operators look to boost their place in the corporate value chain, and most are looking into offerings based on some variant on the super-femtocell or more traditional picocell theme. The latest approach to this market comes from Spidercloud, a start-up established by the former president of Flarion, the mobile broadband company that was acquired by Qualcomm in 2005.

The new firm is just emerging from stealth mode and plans to have a commercial product in mid-2010, promising an "eRAN" (enterprise RAN) or "radio access network in a services node" rather than a standalone cell.

Former Flarion president Mike Gallagher has brought together several members of his former team, including VP of marketing Ronny Haraldsvik and managing director Ron Pelley. The company also boasts former executives from Cisco, Juniper and Qualcomm itself, and was set up in early 2008 with some of the original Flarion investors.

Their plan is to give operators a cost effective platform to target medium-sized enterprises, in particular, using their licensed 3G spectrum. Particularly important, the founders say, is expertise in anti-interference methods, some gained at Flarion; and ease of installation. With many elements, such as the radio network controller and SGSN all contained in one box, it can be installed in a day, linked by Ethernet. Essentially, it provides a cutdown RAN, consisting of a services node and radio node, that will support indoor circuit switched mobile voice and IP services, and is installed and often funded by the carrier.

Pelley says the approach replicates many of the concepts implemented by WLan switchmakers like Airespace (now part of Cisco) but in licensed spectrum, giving the carrier control. He also claims that Spidercloud's architecture is specifically designed for the enterprise and for mass scalability and so will shine against vendors trying to scale up a femtocell that was designed for the residential sector - but implements some of the features of that market, such as zero-touch management (unlike earlier systems geared to the carrier enterprise market, such as RadioFrame's).

The company has raised about $35m in venture capital funding so far, from Charles River Ventures, Matrix Partners and Opus Capital.

"SpiderCloud's approach creates a new tool for the mobile network operator to profitably deploy capacity exactly where it's required," said Shirish Sathaye, general partner at Matrix Partners, in a statement. "This represents a new phase in the way mobile networks will be built going forward."

The company will initially target European HSPA operators and will upgrade to HSPA+ at an early stage. It will start selling directly but will also investigate OEM partnerships.

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