Airvana Introduces Revolutionary Small Cell System for Enterprises and Public Spaces

Airvana, a leading provider of small cell solutions, today announced OneCell™, an LTE small cell system for enterprise and public spaces. OneCell delivers consistently superior LTE performance throughout a wide array of venues from office buildings to shopping centers to airports, with the economics and simplicity of managed Wi-Fi.

Data usage on mobile devices is exploding, particularly indoors. The Small Cell Forum and numerous analysts have cited that 80% of mobile broadband usage occurs indoors.

However, today’s enterprise small cell solutions are limited to a single wireless provider and suffer from inter-cell interference and cell border issues. OneCell addresses these limitations by providing a multi-operator small cell solution with up to a 10x performance improvement, at a fraction of the cost of distributed antenna systems (DAS).

Based on cloud RAN principles, the OneCell system consists of a Baseband Controller and multiple Radio Points. Together they form a single “super” cell that delivers consistently high quality LTE service across indoor spaces ranging from 50,000 to 1,000,000 square feet without handovers or inter-cell interference issues. OneCell supports plug-and-play deployment over standard Ethernet cabling and switches, eliminating the need for proprietary networks or expensive optical links. Further, its unique small cell cloud RAN architecture dramatically simplifies radio frequency planning and integration with wireless macro networks.

“Operators and building owners look for cost-effective, IT-friendly ways to deliver small cell capabilities in enterprise and public space facilities,” said Ken Rehbehn, principal analyst with Yankee Group. “An approach like Airvana’s—which leverages standard Ethernet networks, hides complexity, isolates signaling activity, and aims to make a virtue out of small cell overlap in dense network environments—promises substantial capacity and performance gains.”

By eliminating handovers and interference zones, OneCell also provides the low latency needed for voice over LTE (VoLTE). More than 35 operators around the world, including AT&T, Verizon, and SK Telecom, are in varying stages of VoLTE service implementation, with many of these expected to make initial deployments within the next year.

“There’s a clear interest among operators in serving indoor enterprise environments with scalable, distributed solutions that are also cost-effective. OneCell is well-distinguished from solutions that address this space using macrocell baseband units, and is particularly attractive compared to the cost of traditional Distributed Antenna Systems,” said Ed Gubbins, senior analyst with Current Analysis. “Airvana has an established track record and credibility in small cells, and solutions such as OneCell that use standard Ethernet LANs in these scenarios will be compelling to operators and enterprises alike.”

Principal benefits of OneCell include:

• Consistent, High-Quality User Experience — Eliminates handovers and cell-to-cell interference to ensure uniform, high quality service.
• Multi-Operator — Common Radio Point hardware, deployed across a shared Ethernet infrastructure, supports all wireless providers.
• Dynamic Capacity Allocation — As users move around a building, the system automatically allocates capacity where it is needed.
• Simple and Economical — Plug and play setup over standard Ethernet networks, and vastly simplified radio frequency planning and network integration.
• Investment Protection — OneCell will support LTE Advanced features including Carrier Aggregation, CoMP, and multi-user MIMO via software upgrades.

“Providing high-quality enterprise LTE user experience and simple, economical deployments are no longer mutually exclusive,” said Vedat Eyuboglu, co-founder and CTO, Airvana. “Mobile operators can now add 4G to their large base of in-building deployments without having to fund costly upgrades to existing 2G/3G DAS systems. The strong interest we’re receiving from mobile operators and enterprises is testament to the need for this new and better approach.”

Airvana will demonstrate OneCell in booth #14 at the Small Cells World Summit taking place June 10-12, 2014 in London, and at the DAS and Small Cells Congress taking place June 17-18, 2014 in Las Vegas.

OneCell is available now for trials, and will be generally available in Q1 2015.

About Airvana

Airvana enables mobile operators to deliver dramatically better service to subscribers in the most challenging and high-value environments: offices, public spaces, and in the home. Airvana is the global small cell market share leader. The company’s innovative 3G and LTE small cells ensure “five bar” coverage and superior data performance. Airvana is a founding member of the Small Cell Forum and has 14 years of experience providing commercial wireless equipment to over 90 operators globally.