Small Cell Forum

The Small Cell Forum is a non-profit industry consortium dedicated to the proliferation of Femtocell and Small cell deployment. Their mission statement is "to drive the wide-scale adoption of small cells and accelerate the delivery of integrated HetNets."
Members include mobile telecommunications vendor and Mobile network operator companies. The vendor companies include types such as silicon vendors, mobile system vendors, Femtocell/Small cell vendors, and other specialized product vendors. The Forum focuses on activities to promote small cell technologies, and is a Market Representation Partners of 3GPP.
The Forum was originally started as "Femto Forum" but later changed the name to the current name to adjust itself to the changing trend of the mobile technology.
History
The Forum was originally launched in 2007 as "Femto Forum" to focus on the promotion of Femtocell technology. The founding member companies are mainly start-up companies developing Femtocell technology. At that time, the term "femtocell" was synonymous to products and services intended for residential indoor coverage only. However, since 2009 onward, the deployment scenarios and use cases of femtocell expanded to enterprise, public space, and outdoor scenarios such as metro and rural deployment, in addition to residential scenario. At the same time, the mobile industry started using the term Small cell to generically refer to the type of products that are intended for these deployment scenarios. As a result, the connotation of the term Femtocell shifted toward the type of product and services intended for residential market only.
The Forum saw the needs to make it clear to the mobile industry that its work covers all types of products and deployment scenarios including enterprise, public space, outdoor also, not only the residential deployment. The board of the Forum approved in 2011 to change the name to Small Cell Forum. The new Forum name was officially announced in Mobile World Congress in 2012.
It should be noted that there were similar precedences such as the original DSL Forum change to Broadband Forum as its scope expands more than DSL technology and other industry Fora merges into it.
Mission and Goal
Forum's mission is to drive the wide-scale adoption of small cells and accelerate the delivery of integrated HetNets.
This implies two main areas of focus: 1) Standardization, regulation & interoperability, 2) Marketing, promotion & business case.
Chairman
2007 - 2012: Prof. Simon Saunders
2012 - 2014: Gordon Mansfield (AT&T)
2015-present: Alan Law (Vodafone)
Working Groups
The Forum consists of 7 Working Groups (WGs).
Marketing WG
The Marketing Group considers how best to position small cells within the industry and to the wider public, build usage cases, agree common terminology and communicate how the small cell ecosystem is helping to remove deployment barriers.
Radio (RPH) WG
The Radio and Physical Layer (RPH) Working Group looks at radio layer aspects of small cells in all of their forms, including developing standardized RF interfaces and clarifying the various capability classes of small cell.
Network WG
The Network Group is promoting standardized requirements, architectures and interfaces for integrating small cells into the network core.
Regularoty WG
The Regulatory Group identifies regulatory benefits and potential public policy issues in various strategic markets around the world and works with regulators to ensure a benign environment for rapid and efficient small cell deployment.
Services WG
The Services Group investigates how small cells can introduce innovative new services that take advantage of the presence capabilities of small cells. The group aims to develop industry consensus with around common approaches, such as standard APIs.
Interoperability (IOT) WG
The Interoperability Group provides clarity on how, where and when interoperability testing will take place to ensure that deployments function effectively and in accordance with the standards.
Deployment (DEP) WG
The Deployment Group (DEP) aims to determine, develop and disseminate deployment best practice, especially in the context of urban and rural use cases. It works closely with the Network and Regulatory Groups.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu