London, UK, 3 July, 2024; SCF, the global trade organization committed to fostering sustainable digital transformation across industries, enterprises, and communities, has released its Market forecast report 2024, shedding light on the current state of mobile infrastructure deployment and the opportunities open to the telecoms ecosystem. 

Providing valuable insights into the industry’s technical and commercial prospects, the report is based on surveys and forecasts conducted with 107 organizations worldwide, including tier  
1 and 2 mobile operators, private network operators, neutral hosts and other major service providers. 

The report clearly highlights how small cells and architectural innovation can help realize opportunities and overcome challenges that include pandemic after-effects, geopolitical tensions, inflation, and increasingly pressured capex budgets and deployment plans. 

Offering welcome news to the ecosystem, key findings include: 

• That small cells will be a critical enabler for unlocking faster 5G deployment rates and maximizing benefits and ROI for 5G networks; 
• Dramatic shifts in the telecoms ecosystem are evident, including rapidly evolving expectations from enterprise and policy makers and the changing role of hyperscalers as networks migrate to the cloud; 
• A predicted CAGR of 8.6% between 2022 and 2030 in our baseline forecast for small cell deployment 
• That confidence and demand for public small cells will grow, with CAGR in public small cells reaching 10% in urban and 14% in rural environments by 2030 
• Technology and business innovations are addressing traditional barriers, enabling new economics, new use cases and opening up networks to many potential network deployers and operators. Addressing these barriers could boost small cell deployments by 12% between 2024-2030. 

Sue Monahan, CEO of SCF, commented on the findings: “Our latest report makes it clear that small cells can – and should – play a pivotal role in not just addressing the significant demand for connectivity, but in helping operators and service providers deploy 5G affordably and effectively. 

“This report clearly demonstrates that small cell architectures must be devised as part of the broader evolution of mobile infrastructure and networks, which will make the sizes of cells largely irrelevant, and focus instead on converging cloud, communications and sensing to support a rich platform for a huge array of new experiences.” 

With small cells increasing being drivers for the deployment rates of 5G, the report identifies that closing existing gaps between standard providers and regulators becomes more important than ever. Considerable work is still required to turn specifications into complete solutions that are fully aligned with the needs of customers and provides a common blueprint for deployers. 

Simon Fletcher, Chief Strategy Officer of SCF, said: “As ever, our market status report offers insight into the dynamics and trends across the market but what is most striking for me this year is seeing the ever more critical role that organizations like SCF play.  

“Technologies and operational processes do not always keep pace with the vision, and this is why SCF’s current work program is laser focused on coordinating the work of vendors and component makers, and complementing the work of standards bodies and regulators. By identifying and filling in gaps we can create common architectures, avoid fragmentation and ensure small cells can fulfil the critical role we see emerging for them.” 

You can download the full SCF Market forecast report here. SCF members will be able to access the full market data figures and an accompanying market survey report that explains the data points.  

You can join a free webinar with Caroline Gabriel, the author of the report and Simon Fletcher, discussing the report in more detail, with the opportunity to ask questions about the data. To register visit https://webcastsquared.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MM_JJXQ0TFWg_Y96E0He7A#/registration  

To find out more about the SCF work program and how you can join visit www.smallcellforum.org