BelAir's GigXone promises new Wi-Fi riches for cellcos
New controllers can expand WLan to over 100,000 nodes for offload and to support third party services, with an eye on HetNets
Published: 16 November, 2011
READ MORE: Spectrum | BelAir Networks | Wi-Fi
BelAir Networks, founded a decade ago to tap into the burgeoning metrozone market, no longer likes to be known as a Wi-Fi firm, but is still focusing on metrozones in their newer incarnation - carrier-controlled, running a mixture of Wi-Fi and cellular small cells, and hugely scalable. The company has, in the past few years, become part of the strategies of large cellcos and cablecos by supporting high level data offload to WLans, and now it is moving further into the heart of the carrier network with its GigXone offering.
A couple of months after unveiling its latest small cell offering, the 2100 - which can support LTE as well as Wi-Fi along with integrated backhaul - BelAir has announced a set of Wi-Fi controllers which can scale metro networks to hundreds of thousands of access points, supporting new levels of offload from hard-pressed 3G networks.
CMO Ronny Haraldsvik says a commercial deployment of 100,000 nodes is "not very far away", and in future such zones will take Wi-Fi from a "stopgap solution" to a permanent part of the network strategy, he argues. This will happen with various developments such as the HotSpot 2.0 standards, which will enable seamless handover between 3GPP and WLan systems, and the evolution of HetNets, which improve capacity and coverage by deploying a mixture of cells, of different sizes, air interfaces and spectrum bands.
Once carriers can offload all their excess data, they can turn the Wi-Fi or mixed-mode zones to other users, such as selling offload capacity on to MVNOs or third parties, and even competitors, argues Haraldsvik. And several cellcos round the world are enhancing their brand awareness and business model by offering Wi-Fi access services outside their own customer bases - even, in the case of O2 UK, for free. Meanwhile, China Mobile has become a major seller of iPhones, even though there is no model for its 3G network, by supporting the handset in Wi-Fi mode on its huge collection of hotspots.
BelAir is keen to see such expansion of the carrier model for Wi-Fi, as well as moving into LTE too. Integration of the licensed and unlicensed networks is essential for the Wi-Fi element to be strategic to the operator, rather than just a necessary back-up option for low value data. So GigXone works with existing 3GPP networks and billing systems.
"Small cells are not just about 3G offload anymore as our carrier customers want to offer a reliable brand experience throughout their network service areas, regardless of radio access technologies," said CEO Bernard Herscovich in a statement. "Mobile and cable carrier customers asked us to build a highly scalable system well suited for indoor and outdoor, business and consumers, with multimode small cell options for licensed and unlicensed, and that's what we did with GigXone."
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