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Why join?
SCF is a global membership organization committed to supporting agile, low-cost mobile infrastructure through small cells. Our mission is to make mobile cellular connectivity an accessible resource for organizations of all sizes, and to support the digital transformation of industry, enterprise and communities.
As the mobile ecosystem has evolved, we’ve seen a significant shift from a traditional B2C environment to a B2B and B2C environment, providing potential for new business relationships and opportunities:
- Technology providers expanding from OEMs, tower and transport providers to also include public and private cloud providers
- Network providers expanding from MNOs to also include neutral host providers, private network providers and systems integrators
- Service providers expanding from MNO/MVNOs to also include private network operators
- Connectivity consumers expanding from individual subscribers to include industry, enterprise, smart cities, guests, employers and IoT
Small cells are the means by which enterprise, industry and communities are joining the mobile economy and finding new ways to create value with mobile connectivity.
SCF’s work program has been developed to support this new connectivity agenda, helping to promote and deliver the opportunities and overcome any barriers.
Why not join us on the journey?
Download the AoA and Application Form, the IPR, Confidentiality & Anti-trust policies and the ETSI guidelines on IPR.
Review, complete and authorize
Submit the completed documents and membership services will be in touch
Membership benefits
Work item groups
- Help evolve specifications, work program topics and themes
- Share global best practice
- Contribute to, or lead, work items in your chosen area
- Promotion of your contribution through SCF channels globally
Events
- Discounted delegate passes for Small Cells World Summit
- Discounted sponsorship packages and exhibition space for SCWS
- Face-to-face and virtual member-only plenaries
- Plugfest events
- Virtual events and webinars
Marketing and market intelligence
- SCF Market Forecast reports – raw data files made available to members
- Access to full DARTs tool, data and calculation
- Ability to suggest survey questions for annual market forecast
- Market intelligence sessions
- Free news distribution through SCF email channels and social media
- Company profiles and web listing
- Marketing Advisory Group
Membership packages
Small Cell Forum membership is open to any legally established corporation, individual firm, partnership, governmental body or international organization supporting the promotion and worldwide deployment of small cell technologies.
Contact Membership Services
If you are interested in becoming a Small Cell Forum member and require further details, please contact our membership services team.
Our work program
Below are the areas our members are working on as part of our work program.
Neutral host requirements
Our work here aims to promote a better understanding of the role of neutral hosts, their relationship to MNOs and other service providers, and the advantages of this evolving service provision landscape in the delivery of digital transformation for governments, economies, enterprises and society at large. This includes supporting, leveraging and globalizing the JOTS NHIB approach.
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5G products, splits and components
Small cells are changing. Their form is changing – with virtualized architectures increasingly important for 5G – and so are their use cases. To avoid the risk fragmentation, SCF is constantly evaluating products and splits against requirements to form a consensus view and concise definition of the types of 5G small cells and the key characteristics of the different types of commercially viable 5G small cell RAN products over the next five years.
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FAPI specifications
FAPI is a central component of small cell specifications, responsible for open small cell products. SCF has pioneered these specifications and continues to evolve them to meet the needs of the industry, while keeping pace with the 3GPP specifications in the macro RAN area. In 2023, the highly organized and efficient team will continue to develop release v7 of the FAPI specs, addressing P4 and P19 interface updates, evolution of the P9 interface, as well as MIMO and maintenance updates for P5 & P7 interfaces.
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Network FAPI
Network-FAPI/Split6 are an extension of the FAPI specs to be applied in a network environment, such as disaggregated Split6 based small cell networks, consisting of Distributed Radio Units (S-RU), Distributed Lower-Baseband Units (S-DU) and Centralized Higher-Baseband Units (S-CU). These specifications enable open small cell networks, ensuring multi-vendor interoperability between S-RU & S-DU. SCF has pioneered these specifications and will continue to enhance them in 2023. Specifically, non-ideal fronthaul and neutral host deployments will be addressed.
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Private networks and edge
We will be focusing on an evolution of the blueprint groundwork undertaken in 2022. The priority for our deliverables will be to derive scalable models for lower complexity deployment scenarios – key areas of focus will be healthcare and manufacturing. But we also want to look at key policy issues including promoting better understanding of the role of private networks for cities and local authorities, as well as considering the role of roaming and spectrum allocation in the context of PCNs.
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Advocacy and policy
SCF’s role extends to more than small cell technology and business cases, we also work with regulators, governments, and organizations. We act as advocates for small cells; on topics such as standardization, regulation, and health.
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