Vendors adopt APIs to hasten LTE small cell launches

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Vendors adopt APIs to hasten LTE small cell launches

Femto Forum says 17 companies now support its interoperability APIs, while NEC unveils LTE compact base station

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 7 February, 2012

READ MORE: Infrastructure | Semiconductor | Standards | LTE

Vendors are flocking to create small cell products for LTE, which are likely to be a key theme at this month's Mobile World Congress. Asia is leading the charge, with Korea's SK Telecom boasting the world's first LTE femtocell roll-out, and NEC announcing a 4G compact base station.

According to the Femto Forum, 17 manufacturers are now using its LTE small cell APIs (application programming interfaces). These APIs enable interoperability between the femtocell chips and protocol software from different vendors.

The supporters include the chip providers at the forefront of the tiny base stations which are expected to maximize capacity and coverage in many 4G roll-outs, both indoors and outdoors. Some come from the residential femtocell space, including Broadcom and Picochip, which this week announced the completion of its acquisition by Mindspeed, itself a pioneer in silicon for small LTE base stations. Others are shrinking architectures from the traditional infrastructure market, notably Freescale and Texas Instruments.

Among the equipment and software makers publicly supporting the APIs are Airvana, AirWalk, Cisco, ip.access, mimoOn, Radisys, Tata Elxsi and Ubiquisys.

According to a survey conducted by Informa, 60% of operators believe small cells will be more important than macrocells in LTE deployments. Small cells were also the comfortable winner in a Rethink Research survey of the most important features driving adoption of LTE-Advanced, which standardizes many enabling technologies related to HetNets and self-organization.

"Where small cells once comprised a telecoms niche, they are now at the epicenter of mobile broadband thinking. The quick uptake of the Forum's LTE API is further testament to this fact . Vendors up and down the value chain are adopting the API to give themselves a time to market advantage and the ability to select best-in-class software and hardware - which don't always come from the same source," said Nick Johnson, CTO of ip.access and chair of the Forum's Radio and Physical Layer Working Group, in a statement.

The APIs address three functions - physical layer control (to generate LTE radio signals); scheduling (to assign packets to frequency and time slots); and network monitoring (to minimize interference with the macro network and optimize femtocell coverage).

Another vendor which believes small cells will be the most important topology for LTE is NEC, which is basing its mobile infrastructure comeback hopes on a headstart in compact base stations. This week it has announced availability of the MB4300, an all-in-one LTE platform which can be installed in small spaces such as indoor locations or rooftops. With output power of 2x5W and weighing under 10 kilograms, the product can support up to 200 subscribers. It also features SON (self-organizing network) capabilities.

"In response to the rapid growth in communication traffic accompanying the increased use of smartphones and tablets, telecom carriers are working to boost communication capacity by introducing LTE technology and enhancing the efficiency of wireless capacity," said Kazuya Hashimoto, VP and senior general manager at NEC. "There is also greater demand for environments that ensure stable communications in areas where communication speeds are likely to fall due to heavy traffic or where radio waves are weak."