Telecom Lead America: Sprint will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s
lightRadio Metro Cells to enhance coverage in high-traffic areas.
Sprint will focus on indoor applications, including
entertainment venues, transportation hubs and business campuses.
Metro cells will enable the American mobile service
provider to offer improved broadband experience to more subscribers in these
high-traffic areas and will help reduce costs in the process.
Metro cells are useful in crowded areas.
At sporting events, popular shopping venues and other
social and business occasions, large numbers of people are accessing social
networking sites, sharing videos, playing Internet games and making voice and video
calls, putting stress on mobile service providers’ cellular networks. This can
lead to dropped calls, slower data connections and reduce the subscriber’s
mobile broadband experience.
As per Sprint’s Network Vision initiative, the mobile
service provider is deploying a new, improved 3G network and 4G LTE. Small cell
technology complements the Network Vision plan by providing a lower cost
infrastructure to expand coverage and capacity in targeted high usage areas.
Bob Azzi, Sprint senior vice president-Network said that
Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio Metro Cells enable the operator to increase its
coverage and capacity where it’s needed.
Robert Vrij, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s Americas
Region and head of Global Strategic Alliances, said enhancing mobile broadband
coverage in busy public areas is a top priority for many service providers.
Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio technology supports the full
range of wireless technologies, including 2G, 3G and 4G LTE, and Wi-Fi. This
provides mobile operators with the capability to grow their network capacity to
meet exploding demand for data services with higher speeds and in a smaller
physical space.
To date, Alcatel-Lucent has 39 commercial small cell
deployment agreements and more than 20 ongoing trials.
editor@telecomlead.com