Latest blog from Alan Law
Amid the busy autumn conference schedule, the Small Cells Americas event in Dallas is a highlight. This year its content has a brand new look, designed to reflect the themes and priorities identified this year by the Small Cell Forum and its operator members.
The event will bring the small cell industry together on November 3-4, to focus on a region where there is rapid change occurring in wireless – from the US carriers’ densification to enterprise and city roll-outs in Brazil – and to look beyond that to global deployment and technology issues.
The most visible change in the conference program is in the structure, which has replaced three content streams with two broader themes – HetNet and Enterprise. Day one of the conference will focus on a wide range of topics related to the critical issue of how small cells will drive heterogeneous networks; while day two will be devoted to Enterprise small cell platforms and deployments.
These subjects are seen by the Forum as the key drivers of its activities, and its six new work items – kicked off at the Champions’ Day in Rome earlier this month – will all help to make Enterprise and HetNet deployments a commercial reality.
The new format will provide the opportunity for audiences to explore these two vital topics in great depth, and with many different aspects represented, from case studies to technical challenges to future roadmaps. The sessions will provide insights and discussion around all the six Forum work items – Enterprise, License-Exempt Spectrum, SON, Virtualization, Multi-Operator support and IoT/5G.
Within the HetNet day, for instance, there will be Plenary sessions addressing key issues for real world deployment, including integration with DAS and Wi-Fi, and the delivery of commercial services harnessing a heterogeneous platform. Then the discussion will be divided into two important aspects of HetNet – technology enablers, and revenue opportunities.
The former will give attendees the opportunity to get into depth in areas such as SON, emerging standards and Cloud-RAN; while the latter will look at a wide range of ways to enhance the business case for HetNet, from marketing analytics to voice services to the evolution of the Internet of Things.
On the Enterprise day, the Plenary sessions will look at significant issues such as cellular/WiFi integration, security and managed services, and there will then, again, be sessions to focus in greater depth on specific topics which are critical to deployments. Some will center on particular market scenarios, notably municipal, transit and high-density stadium networks. There will also be sessions concentrating on the perennially important, and evolving, area of backhaul.
The conference will end on a forward-looking note, with a general session examining the role of small cells in the two great platforms of the next generation, the Internet of Things and 5G.
Small Cells America will also be an excellent opportunity for the Forum to update its members, and the wider community, about progress of its new work items and its other activities, as it looks ahead to a busy 2016.
Overall, the aim will be to give the audience valuable and detailed insights into how a dense, multi-technology network could become an affordable, deployable and commercially successful platform for their business. That will support the Forum’s important objective of accelerating the deployment of small cells, by providing the knowledge, resources and confidence that operators need to go forward.
Small Cell Forum members are eligible for a 20% discount.
Register for Small Cells Americas »
Find out more about the Small Cell Forum plenary 4-5 November »
