HetNet News: Small cell industry awards, Amtrak RFP

Small Cell Industry Awards
The Small Cell Forum announced the Small Cell Industry Awards for 2014 as part of last week’s Small Cells World Summit in London. For small cell innovoation leadership, Alcatel-Lucent won for its site certification program. Cisco won the vendor award for small cell access point design and technology innovation. For small cell network element design and technology innovation there were three winners: SpiderCloud Wireless, Vodafone and Hewlett-Packard.
Cambridge Communication Systems won for small cell backhaul design and technology innovation. Vodafone and IBwave won for small cell tool design. JDSU won for deployment enables, like subsystems, software and components.
Two individuals received awards for their contributions to Small Cell Forum activities: Peter Musgrove and Eric Colard. Musgrove, who works for AT&T, was noted for making significant contributions to the regulatory and network working groups. Eric Colard, who works for Microsemi, was cited for initiating the Small Cell Forum’s Release Program, which documents standards and best practices. Colard also drove the Synchronization for LTE small cells whitepaper.
Northeast corridor on track for high speed Wi-Fi
Amtrak is soliciting bids for a proof of concept for a high speed track side Wi-Fi service along the Northeast corridor, from Boston to Washington, D.C. It says that right now, the busiest trains can’t support the demand for connectivity and commuters can’t do everything they want to do with their mobile devices.
Amtrak says that a high-speed wireless trackside network would allow it to drop current restrictions on streaming media and large file downloads and close existing coverage gaps along the Northeast corridor. According to the RFP, the goal is to identify a contractor who can design, procure, install, test, operate and maintain a secure track side wireless broadband network.
Wi-Fi offload: East beats West
For mobile operators, Wi-Fi offload is most critical in the Eastern United States, according to a new study from Wefi, which provides network selection information to mobile network operators and content providers. States in the Eastern U.S. offload 82% more data than do states in the West, according to Wefi. Iowa was noted as the state with the fastest Wi-Fi speeds.
The top five states with the highest Wi-Fi offloading rates were Utah, New Mexico, Arkansas, Vermont and Maine. Netflix accounts for a growing percentage of Wi-Fi usage, outpacing both Vine and Instagram combined in the first quarter, according to Wefi.
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