An Unlikely Marriage: Cloud RAN and Small Cells

CAMPBELL, Calif., July 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Here's the latest development in the mobile telecom market: Cloud RAN and Small Cells are tying the knot. Despite the fact these two technologies have been raised as competing architectures, their union may be the best option for high-density mobile networks. How complementary or competitive are these technologies, and how should participants in the market plan to react? In their latest market report, Convergence of Small Cells and CRAN, the analysts at Mobile Experts explore specific approaches, both positive and negative, to this potential convergence. The report illustrates the techniques which will allow Small Cells and Cloud RAN to coexist, with unique new partitioning of the Layer 1-3 processing.

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The projection supplements Mobile Experts' December 2013 study, which is highly quantitative with its cost models and forecasts. The new supplemental report is more qualitative, describing the development of the technologies' architecture over time as well as the rationale for mobile operators to drive changes in the Layer 1-3 stack.

"In 2018, nearly 3 million Remote Radio Head (RRH) sectors will be deployed in centralized or Cloud RAN configurations," explained Joe Madden, Principal Analyst at Mobile Experts.  "Most of these will coexist with small cells in some way.  The technical challenges for peaceful coexistence of these two radio architectures will be challenging and will require changes to the partitioning of Layers 1-3."

"We published a market study six months ago, which laid out a cost model for CRAN and forecasted where CRAN would be implemented.  The feedback from our study has encouraged us to go deeper.  This supplemental technical report provides the details on how CRAN will be used in networks that also use small cells.  Many people are confused about how small cells can be used in the same network as a centralized RAN or Cloud RAN architecture.  Mobile Experts has been able to identify specific changes to the Layer 1-3 partitioning which make these two systems compatible with each other."

Today, mobile network operators (MNOs) have more technology choices than ever before. Vendors are developing new equipment to process the increasing need for capacity, improving performance and quality. As the leading market expert in the Radio Access Network, Mobile Experts has been able to create a useful roadmap for the conflicting Cloud RAN and Small Cell markets.  Contact Mobile Experts for more information.

About Mobile Experts LLC: 
Mobile Experts provides insightful market analysis for the mobile infrastructure and mobile handset markets. Our analysts are true experts, who remain focused on topics where each analyst has 20 years of experience or more. Research topics center on technology introduction for radio frequency (RF) and communications innovation. Recent publications focus on Small Cells, Semiconductors for Small Cells, Macro Base Station Transceivers,Semiconductors for RRH, Active Antenna Systems, Backhaul for Small Cells, DAS, Cloud RAN, and Carrier WiFi.

Contact:                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Rachel Lorraine          
Mobile Experts LLC 
Email 
+1 (408) 540 7284 
www.mobile-experts.net  

SOURCE Mobile Experts LLC