Development of small cells system supports LTE in unlicensed spectrum

These SpiderCloud systems will be among the first to seamlessly deliver LTE capacity over unlicensed spectrum in large indoor environments, such as offices, university campuses, hospitals, hotels, shopping centers and sport venues. They will be based on SpiderCloud’s Enterprise RAN (E-RAN) architecture that includes a Services Node controlling up to 100 self-organising LTE small cells, capable of delivering coverage and capacity in indoor locations as large as 1.5m square feet. Verizon will trial SpiderCloud’s LTE-U system in the third quarter of 2016.

SpiderCloud’s systems are enabled with Qualcomm Technologies’ latest LTE technology including aggregation of licensed and unlicensed spectrum on Qualcomm Technologies’ highly integrated FSM SoC platforms, which include the FSM9900. The FSM9900 is a 28nm small cell SoC that supports multimode operation (LTE, UMTS) and LTE-Advanced features, such as LTE carrier aggregation. It also supports features such as digital pre-distortionand others designed to reduce power consumption, helping enable full-featured small cells for indoor deployments. SpiderCloud expects to utilise the FSM9900 across other products on its portfolio.

The collaboration will enable a robust long-term roadmap for dense and scalable small cell deployments, including LAA, MulteFire and neutral host LTE solutions. To support its development and commercialisation of MulteFire, SpiderCloud has joined the MulteFire Alliance.

“SpiderCloud shares Qualcomm Technologies’ vision that small cells will be crucial in addressing the 1000x mobile data challenge”, said Mike Gallagher, Chief Executive Officer, SpiderCloud. “Our relationship with Qualcomm Technologies allows us to offer mobile operators with easy-to-deploy and easy-to-integrate LTE small cells solutions”.

“Operators worldwide are increasingly demanding LTE infrastructure solutions that make best use of both licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands,” said Neville Meijers, Vice President, Business Development, Qualcomm Technologies. “We are pleased to join forces with SpiderCloud in developing a roadmap of small cells expected to meet and exceed operator needs.”