Swedish gear maker Ericsson expects a pickup in deployment of 3G and 4G small cells in India as telecom operators work on improving in-building coverage to better serve data customers amid intense competition, having already bagged contracts with a top Indian telco for small cells deployment at several banks and hospitals in cities like Mumbai.
“In Mumbai, there are several installations of Radio Dot small cells in large buildings and commercial centers where these are deployed fully covering the building. It starts with the high net worth individual customers, big corporate and enterprises. Going down the line, this will be deployed at other places as well,” Marko Babovic, Head of Product Line Indoors, Ericsson, told ET. “There are deployments and trials happening in other big cities in India.”
The executive said that the deployment rate is increasing because of the inherent need of more capacity, coverage, and better user experience.
Small cells deployments globally have picked up great momentum in the last 12 months or so. Globally, the small cells market grew 56% from 2015 to 2016. “This is historic. Within 5 years from today, we expect small cells to be accounting for 20% of the overall RAN market,” the executive said.
According to industry analysts, small cells accounted for 4% of the overall RAN market in India in 2016. RAN, or a radio access network (RAN), is part of a mobile telecommunication system. It resides between a device—such as a mobile phone, a computer—or any remotely controlled machine and provides connection with its core network.
Indian telecom operators are trying to provide better indoor coverage, which is still a challenge on the 2300 Mhz band, which is largely being used to deliver 4G services.
“We have seen various flavors of this combinations. In India, we are still trying to figure out the best possible solution but the basic thing is that it is a part of a telecom network, so eventually the ownership will have to be with telecom companies,” Babovic said.
By Baishakhi Dutta
