A new white paper from Amdocs is entitled Game-Changing Economics for Small Cell Deployment. The paper focuses on the deployment of metrocells, as will be directly planned and commissioned by service providers or 3rd parties, predominantly in urban high density hotspots such as city centers, airports and shopping malls.
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The analysis notes that, while the equipment cost of small cells is much lower than large macrocell towers, the business case for successful large-scale deployment of small cells relies on the reduced total cost of deployment and operation, which includes planning, installation and on-going maintenance.
"With up to 10 times the number of small cells serving dense urban areas covered by a single base station today, the rate of small cell rollout will need to be anything up to 50 times faster than new macrocell deployments," contends Amdocs.
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The white paper adds, "Analysts forecast there will be more public access small cells by 2017 than all of today’s base stations worldwide. The practical implications of such widespread and rapid change in network construction impact the processes and tools which service providers use."
View/Download the white paper.