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Enterprise wireless start-up Spidercloud Wireless has always steered clear of the 'femtocell' label for its indoor solution, and now it has coined another term for its latest offering in the voguish small cell arena - 'small cell cluster'. This uses a series of Ethernet linked cells to provide coverage and capacity inside offices, shopping malls and other large sites.

Improving indoor coverage for businesses is a key target for the femtocell vendors, many of which have expanded products initially designed for residential use, to support larger numbers of users and corporate requirements such as enhanced security. Spidercloud, when it was founded in 2008, started in the corporate sector and is now going a step further, looking to offer not just the mini-base stations - which are rapidly becoming commoditized - but the infrastructure to support them.

Its SmartCloud Cluster technology will connect small cells to increase efficiency and capacity without additional upfront capex, says the firm. "There is a huge macro trend toward smaller cells," said CEO Mike Gallagher. "We can build a very big franchise here." He said the firm already has trials with several major operators, which are keen to increase their profile and value proposition in the enterprise. However, no names have been revealed.

The system incorporates a 'cluster controller' and a number of small cells to create an intelligent and self-organizing indoor network, which can also be deployed for temporary capacity in scenarios such as sports events (it takes two days to pull cables and light up the cluster, says the vendor, with an installation process comparable to that for Wi-Fi).

In a test installation the firm equipped a 100,000 square foot office building with a single cluster controller and 18 Ethernet linked small cells. Working at 38% capacity this cluster handled a daily average of 3,000 calls and 50,000 data sessions, with higher data rates and voice quality than on a typical macrocell (download at 5-10Mbps).

Gallagher is best known for heading up mobile broadband pioneer Flarion Technologies when it was sold to Qualcomm for an impressive $600m, and he has also engineered the sale of other start-ups, but he told Reuters he was in no hurry to sell Spidercloud. "It would be nice to take one public," he commented. SpiderCloud has raised around $70m so far from Charles River Ventures, Matrix Partners, Opus Capital and Shasta Ventures.

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