Are Small Cells a Hard Sell?
10/2/2013Enterprises will have to install small cells from a number of different operators thanks to the BYOD trend, so building an attractive pricing model will be important.
Enterprises will have to install small cells from a number of different operators thanks to the BYOD trend, so building an attractive pricing model will be important.
I suppose for small cells it is the same issues as RF planning in smartphones. It'll be telling to see Ericsson's business model (when it finally launches next year). It already has AT&T and Verizon on board, so maybe it can get a cross-carrier deal worked out.
As far as financial models go, I dont work for small cell vendors or for carriers so my opinions are really irelevant. that said there are plenty of possibilities.
My favorite financial model is that a single carrier deploys the device and is responsible for its installation & maintenance, while the other carriers are tenants and have some sort of roaming agreement. this follows the DAS model.
When it comes to residential, operators aren't willing to do much at all besides let you buy a femtocell.
The first option would be the second one you alluded to which is when the carrier feels the need to cover a specific area and they initiate the deployment.
The second option is one where the carrier feels they can survive without improving coverage but the facility's owner feels a need and they initiate it.
In most cases the initiator foots the bill for the deployment costs and attemots to recoup them by charging the carrier tenants for its use.
There's a 3rd option in which the carrier's have antenna/tower groups that that build and deploy towers and DAS systems which they then rent out and open them up to competing carriers. There are cases where either for competetive reasons or specific site reasons that they will keep it exclusive.
If you find that I missed anything in this short clarification please fill in the details.