The near-insatiable demand for bandwidth-hungry smartphones, tablets and mobile applications has dramatically changed the business model for today's mobile operator. While providing additional revenue-generating opportunities, the massive uptick in mobile traffic has also put additional strain on networks and operators, who are required to routinely add capacity to keep pace and remain competitive.



Quite obviously, adding new macro cell sites and radios is extremely expensive and, in some situations, not feasible if a carrier has exhausted their allotted amount of spectrum. Instead, many forward-thinking operators have begun taking cell splitting and densification to the "small cell" level with femtocells and picocells.  

These two solutions improve cellular coverage and user satisfaction while also effectively relieving the macro network through the offloading data. Femtocells (News - Alert) are utilized indoors at the residential and enterprise level, providing additional coverage and capacity for up to 50 yards, while picocells work both indoors and outdoors and boost coverage for up to a half-mile.

The leading provider in this burgeoning field is Texas-based Taqua, whose MobileWorks Small Cell solution has been used to deploy and provision hundreds of thousands of femtocells and picocells across 3G environments. Leveraging existing IP infrastructure to provide capacity today, the Taqua (News - Alert) solution is also extensible to the 4G/LTE environment, allowing carriers to evolve to tomorrow's IMS cores without losing their initial investment.

The MobileWorks Small Cell solution supports handover between small cell and macro cell networks along with regulatory services like E911 and CALEA. The solution also enables single, one-number access to traditional services like voice, SMS, MMS and home number routing as well as next-gen services like mobile TV and multimedia downloads.

All of these services are supported in IP and IMS environments with security equivalent to macro cell networks.

MobileWorks has developed into the top small cell solution on the market due to its ability to benefit both the operator and the mobile customer. Operators can quickly and inexpensively address capacity and coverage while reducing the load on the mobile core network. In addition, carriers can decrease network backhaul operating costs by leveraging the power of IP networks or customers-provided Web connections for Femtocells.

Customers, meanwhile, will enjoy a higher quality of service and gain access to next-gen applications and triple and quadruple play bundling. And all of this can be accomplished without any fundamental changes to macro cell networks.

As mentioned, Taqua provides additional value by supporting voice and messaging over next-generation networks. This means that Taqua customers won't need to purchase a separate solution when they make the inevitable transition to VoLTE.

"Taqua provides all the necessary components from session control to secure access along with gateway functions and IMS application servers to allow for a smooth transition from 2G/3G circuit-based networks to an all-IP 4G network," says the company.

Click here to learn more about MobileWorks.




Edited by Stefanie Mosca