The broad in-building wireless market, including small cell vendors, is increasingly targeting sales to the enterprise market as a way to solve for current coverage and capacity problems, as well as set the stage for enterprise-facing internet of things initiatives such as smart lighting, asset monitoring and other value-adding use cases.
To facilitate discussion between the small cell ecosystem and potential enterprise customers, the U.K.-based Small Cell Forum formed an Enterprise Advisory Council, which launched with founding members representing a broad swath of valuable verticals. Members include commercial real estate services firm CBRE, automaker General Mothers, Marriott International, hospital network Kaiser Permanente and co-working space owner WeWork.
Small Cell Forum Chair David Orloff said small cell technology can help enterprises solve for the “lack of access to reliable critical communications [that]…directly impact organizations’ bottom lines. SCF Is in a unique position to bring the cellular operator and vendor community together with major players from across the enterprise to work to resolve this issue to the benefit of everyone.”
Last year Small Cell Forum published a survey of more than 500 hundred global companies across 17 industries and that found more than one-third either have deployed small cells or plan to do so this year. The research, conducted by Nemertes, showed 14% of respondents already using small cells, with another 31% planning to deploy this year.
Companies in the travel and transportation industries expressed the highest level of interest in small cells, but when it came to actual deployments or plans to deploy, other industries ranked much higher. The logistics and distribution industries had the most deployments and/or plans to deploy. Retail, construction and electric utilities also scored high marks for actual deployments.
Alex Ajdelsztain of Marriott International, which has more than 1.2 million rooms across 6,200 properties, said, “Offering an exceptional mobile experience to our guests is critical to our success. We are delighted to be working with the Small Cell Forum and its members to ensure the industry continues to evolve with the customer experience in mind.”
