Small cells have a been a hot topic in wireless networking and mobile communications for well over a decade, but behind the apparent simplicity of that term lies some very complex technology, a good deal of confusion as to how next-generation cellular networks will be deployed, and, most importantly, questions as to the benefits of small cells with respect to the critical elements of availability, reliability, and especially the capacity to support high volumes of traffic and any mix of applications required. As it turns out, these goals would in fact today be impossible without putting small cells to work.
Small cells have become the very foundation of both Wi-Fi and the future of wide-area cellular communications, the rapidly- emerging 5G. The challenge now is to apply small cells to wide-area cellular networks, and the transition to 5G just now beginning rep- resents a clear opportunity to do so – and carriers are indeed proceeding, with small cells expected to become the dominant provisioning technique is areas of high population- and user-density, and thus high demand.
Before small cell networks become a must-have for the enterprise – IT managers have a few years before that’s certain – learn why and how small cell networks are going to supercede today’s wireless networks, what the considerations will be for implementing one in IT operations, and what network managers will need to do to prepare for the next level of ubiquitous mobile connectivity and edge computing.
