Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure may be getting a lesson in small cells. Claure said goodbye to his wife and newborn baby after Mother’s Day to head for Japan, where he has been meeting with Softbank executives to discuss the Sprint network. Here in the U.S., the vendors and service providers that will help Sprint upgrade its network are waiting for news. A number of them expect Sprint’s plan to include a heavy focus on a solution that Softbank pioneered: small cells.
Sources have heard that Sprint will add 20,000 small cells to its network, a number that was circulating even before Claure’s trip. Now vendors are wondering if Claure has used his time in Japan to learn more about small cells.
Softbank, which owns 78% of Sprint, has already deployed a small cell network. The company’s hyperdense network uses cloud-controlled base stations no bigger than a suitcase, packing in as many as 150 per square kilometer in Japan’s biggest cities. Softbank has also installed thousands of small cells on post offices throughout rural Japan, using satellite backhaul.
Softbank is one of the first mobile operators to successfully deploy small cells that centralize control of the radio access network. Analyst Kevin Smithen of Macquarie Securities expects Sprint to also deploy cloud-controlled small cells.
“We continue to believe that Sprint will incorporate C-RAN technology over small cells as part of its network architecture at substantial savings per node/site over earlier Network Vision deployments,” Smithen wrote in a research note. Earlier this year, Smithen put some numbers on his estimates.
“We believe that Sprint can cover the top 50 urban markets on 2.5 GHz with 25,000 sites (or 500 nodes per market) by the end of 2018,” said Smithen. He published that projection after a conversation with ExteNet Systems, which leases small cell sites to carriers. ExteNet is partially owned by SBA Communications, one of the largest tower companies. SBA’s CEO Jeffrey Stoops told RCR Wireless News that he expects small cells to be a part of Sprint’s network upgrade.
“I do think part of what they will do going forward will involve small cells,” said Stoops. “I think it’s an architecture and a part of wireless networks whose time has come … it’s going to be a permanent part of the carriers’ needs going forward.”
Crown Castle CEO Ben Moreland also said that all four major U.S. carriers will eventually use outdoor small cells and/or distributed antenna systems to densify their networks. Moreland said that Crown Castle is currently working on a small cell trial with Sprint.
Sprint has projected $5 billion in capital spending for this year, spending more than $2 billion of that in the first quarter. That leaves roughly $1 billion/quarter for the remainder of the year if Sprint sticks to its forecast.
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