Qualcomm, a major proponent of deploying cellular in unlicensed spectrum using the LTE Unlicensed technology, is developing LTE-U small cells with partners Samsung and SpiderCloud Wireless.
LTE-U is seen as a way for carriers to keep up with demand for mobile data, but, because the technology combines both licensed and unlicensed spectrum used by Wi-Fi, fair co-existence with Wi-Fi is a key consideration for LTE-U.
Qualcomm’s FSM9955 chipset has gone into Samsung’s LTE-U EFemto cell product. The goal of the new Samsung product is a “plug-and-play” deployment. According to the technical specifications, a single unit supports three carriers of 20 megahertz each with peak download speeds of 450 megabits per second.
Kiho Cho, VP of Samsung’s Network System Design Lab, said LTE-U will enable operators and enterprises to affordably keep up with data demand. “Samsung LTE-U EFemto cells will benefit end users by enabling faster data communications with seamless mobility and reliable performance, while minimizing interference with Wi-Fi,” Cho explained.
With SpiderCloud, Qualcomm is developing small cells designed to support LTE-U, LTE license assisted access and MulteFire. LAA is a flavor of LTE-U that requires an anchor tenant be deployed in licensed spectrum. MulteFire removes that requirement for an anchor tenant.
The development is targeting use cases like offices, university, hospitals, hotels and shopping centers. The products will use SpiderCloud’s Enterprise RAN architecture, which considers a service node controlling up to 100 self-organizing small cells providing coverage up to 1.5 million square feet.
“SpiderCloud shares Qualcomm Technologies’ vision that small cells will be crucial in addressing the 1000x mobile data challenge,” said SpiderCloud CEO Mike Gallagher. “Our relationship with Qualcomm Technologies allows us to offer mobile operators with easy-to-deploy and easy-to-integrate LTE small cells solutions.”
