[Infonetics]: Demand for Data Drives MNOs to Deploy Small Cells; Already Offload 10%

      

Infonetics Research published 2 new research papers by Stéphane Téral, Principal Analyst, Mobile and FMC Infrastructure, and Michael Howard (pictured), principal analyst and co-founder of on small cells.

The papers find that ".. small cells are shifting from indoor voice coverage improvement to data optimization and are poised to play a major role in 3G and 4G network expansion .. The top 3 drivers for deploying small cells are optimizing in-building coverage, optimizing high data usage areas, and non-expandability of the macro network ..". 

"While operators handle most of their mobile traffic with macrocells (90% on average) and the backhaul network, we were surprised to find that operators we surveyed already offload about 10% of their traffic over indoor and outdoor small cells, WiFi hotspots, and residential femtocells – and they intend to triple that to about 30% at some point in 2013 or later"

See "Small cell survey shows operators plan to run 12% of network capacity on small cells by 2012" - here and "New study details operator plans for small cell backhaul" - here.