The cost of a large scale small cell deployment is out of reach for most regional carriers in the United States, but the need to offload traffic and increase capacity can be just as urgent as it is for their larger rivals. One possible solution may be shared service gateways, or hosted small cell solutions. ClearSky Technologies is currently offering a hosted solution for GSM carriers and Cellcom is offering a similar solution for CDMA carriers.
“If a regional operator were to make this investment on their own, depending on their requirements, they could easily spend 1.5 to 2 million dollars just for the gateway,” said Tony Taglierini, chief sales and marketing officer at ClearSky Technologies. “What ClearSky does is we actually make that investment for them and implement what we call a multi-tenant environment, and then each of those operators has an opportunity to use that technology to deploy small cells within their network, be they residential or enterprise small cells.” For operators who work with ClearSky, small cells will be an operating expense rather than a capital investment.
“Another component that I believe regional operators have some difficulty with is the operational expense and also the expertise,” said Taglierini. “To get the expertise that you need in rural America for some of this newer technology is just difficult to do and ClearSky brings that to the table,” he said. ClearSky has about 60 regional carrier customers for other products and services, and is working to extend its small cells as a service offering to these operators.
While tier-one carriers are turning to small cells to densify their networks, regional operators may look at small cells as a way to bring service to underserved areas. For mobile customers in remote areas, small cells can be their primary connection to mobile broadband.
“Sharing the core, staff, training and marketing expertise will not only make it possible for all CDMA carriers to provide the basic services needed but also build a platform for advanced services for our customer, their homes and their enterprises,” said Robert Riordan, EVP of Cellcom, in a press release. “Sharing our switching core will allow all regional and small CDMA carriers to benefit from the economies of scale that our large counterparts take for granted.”
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