Alcatel-Lucent extends support for indoor and outdoor small cell deployments

With a total of more than one million sites now available in the program new members will help service providers improve coverage for companies indoors while expanding outdoor deployment support.

Alcatel-Lucent is expanding its Site Certification Program with the addition of new member companies to help mobile service providers quickly deploy small cells where they need greater coverage.

New members of the award winning program, will increase support for outdoor small cell deployment while adding expertise to solve the challenges related to indoor deployment - often in the workplace.

Mobile service providers want to increase coverage and quality in busy, high-traffic areas, or where the radio signal is obstructed. By continuing to expand program membership as well as focussing on critical coverage challenges inside buildings, Alcatel-Lucent can help them accelerate deployments in public or privately owned premises. This will allow mobile service providers to address an in-building market opportunity which is growing from US$4.3 billion in 2014 to US$9.4 billion in 2020 – a market with less than 10% penetration today .

The Site Certification Program has already successfully accelerated the deployment of outdoor small cells. Originally focused on boosting coverage in dense urban areas and large venues such as busy shopping centers and outdoor stadiums, Alcatel-Lucent has tripled the number of program members since launch. With the addition of new specialists the program now provides access to over one million sites across the globe including North America, Central and Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

New program members, including Argent Associates, Colt Technology Services, DecisionOne Corporation, Eiffage Energie, Mastec, Inc., Md7 and Syscom Telecom, each bring unique capabilities and assets to help operators rapidly deploy small cells outdoors and in-building and meet the coverage needs of subscribers. Their specialized market knowledge in a range of industry types include access to indoor sites, some in hard to reach locations for power and backhaul, as well as lease negotiation.

Jim Cocito, Senior Vice President, Wireless Services, Alcatel-Lucent said: “The in-building market is a large and untapped opportunity for mobile operators. With people increasingly using their own devices at work and more acceptance of BYOD, enterprises have the opportunity to move to the ‘Mobile Office’, using their IT infrastructure for mobile communications and removing legacy land lines. With the Site Certification Program we can help service providers get small cells into the places to meet their customers’ needs more rapidly and efficiently.”

Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research, said: “Since 2013 when it was first announced, Alcatel-Lucent’s Site Certification program has been solving complex and time consuming small cell deployment challenges for outdoor and venue locations. Now with this announcement the company and its Site Certification partners are applying their specialist know-how to the challenges of deploying small cells indoors.”