Reader Forum: Education, support key to enterprise small cells

There’s been a few questions asked recently in RCR Wireless News and Network World about the go-to-market challenges faced by the small cell community, especially in the enterprise space. And of course it is true, there are some questions to be answered.
The pleasing element for the small cell market though is those questions are now “how are we going to deploy” and not “why do we need to deploy.”  Just before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, we carried out some research on behalf of our members with some 500 enterprise customers. We spoke to people across regions and industries in the first major piece of work on this space and a clear trend emerged: enterprise customers are already deploying small cells; or they plan to by the end of next year; or they are thinking about deploying, but need more information.
The last group makes it clear the market needs more help and education about the practical elements of deployment: how do I do it, how quick is the return on investment, do I need to go through my operator or can this be a third party, can we integrate Wi-Fi, do I need one for every operator or is multi-operator an option? So, yes, there are plenty of questions. But there are also plenty of answers.
Many of the answers are contained in our “Release Six: Smart Enterprise” released at MWC. And anyone can download those answers from our free-to-all download site www.scf.io.  
In fact, there are more than 25 documents within Release Six. Specifically, there is an “easy deployment guide” aimed directly at the enterprise market that answers many of the “how to do it questions.” There’s also a series of small cell deployment case studies that show the benefits and ROI clearly, as well as information on Wi-Fi integration, use of unlicensed spectrum bands and progress on multi-operator deployments.
We described the collection of documents in the release as a practical, technical and commercial guide for small cells in a smart enterprise – and anyone leafing through the list of documents on the site can see that makes for a pretty good summary.
But the research we did within the enterprise market also threw up a few more interesting pieces of data, which might help explain why the levels of interest are so high and why the guys are looking for the “how do I deploy” answers rather than sticking to the “what’s in it for me” attitude of days now thankfully gone.
For example, some 94% of respondents said the quality of their in-building cellular coverage had an impact on their business performance. In fact, on a scale of 1-10, some 42% gave it a high rating of 8-10 in terms of seriousness. And the business sector that was most prominent in those adverse scores – the health sector.
And here’s another thing, in a world where people frequently call out data capacity as a problem, enterprise customers said poor voice signal was the biggest issue – 45% put voice at the top of their list compared to 36% citing slow data or email as their biggest concern.
Those enterprises responsible for public locations – such as retail outlets and major transport hubs – also wanted small cells to deliver improved coverage for visitors and customers, with 42% scoring that requirement highly. Not surprisingly, the multi-operator functionality is also important in these areas.
Within retail in particular, support for mobile commerce applications (38%) and improved social media engagement (36%) emphasized the opportunity for app-based services to take advantage of location-aware solutions that could be driven by small cells. Again, Small Cell Forum’s Release Six has some API guidance for the enterprise app developer community and we are working within the GSMA’s OneAPI program to help app developers address the market for enterprise and business app solutions.
Our research shows clearly the role small cells have to play in successful business performance. It confirms our view that in a mobile-first business environment, enterprises need the coverage, capacity and security that only a carrier grade small cell deployment can provide.
So yes, there are questions being asked; but there are also plenty of answers available – and a good place to find them is “Release Six: Smart Enterprise” on scf.io.
Editor’s Note: In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this Reader Forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: [email protected].