Vodafone has deployed Radio Dot system at its offices in London
Vodafone is trialing the Ericsson Radio Dot small cell system inside its London offices representing a first-of-its-kind trial in the United Kingdom.
According to reports, the ideal is to trial the Ericsson small cell solution as a viable option for in-building coverage that’s more cost effective than alternatives like a distributed antenna system.
Earlier this year Verizon undertook a similar trial of the Ericsson tech at one of its regional offices in the U.S.
If the trial at Vodafone’s Waterloo-area office is successful, the carrier could use the same set-up to provide indoor cellular to enterprise customers.
Vodafone UK CTO Jorge Fernandez told Mobile World Live, “With 70% of customers using their mobile device mostly indoors, we want to eradicate the frustration of losing a conference call or video-streaming session when moving throughout a business park or leaving a music venue.”
“Through our work with the world’s leading equipment and network experts, such as Ericsson, we are taking a big step towards achieving that goal through this trial, the first of its kind in the U.K.,” he added.
In February, Vodafone Netherlands deployed Ericsson’s RBS 6402, which is a scaled-down verision of the Radio Dot small cell system and is designed for smaller venues.
Vodafone dropped the picocells – about the size of a tablet – in some of its consumer shops in the Netherlands where the carrier has about 400 shops serving more than 5 million business and residential customers.
Global CMO for Ericsson, Arun Bhikshesvaran, said there’s huge potential for the picocell solution.
“We have estimated there are approximately 10 million buildings that can be served by a solution like this. It’s not a huge campus where you would have multiple Radio Dots deployed, but will be large enough that one RBS 642 can cover the entire building. That is where this product is positioned. It is between the Radio Dot system and the macro network.”
