TeleWorld Solutions launched an online marketplace aimed at matching property owners with carriers looking to deploy small cells.
SmallCellSite.com, which is scheduled to go live this morning, uses an interactive mapping and photo-based interface enabling property owners to upload listing information, receive suggested pricing based on algorithms, and market their space to major carriers. Operators can use the site to search for property information including dimensions, features, pricing and distance to fiber for deployments of small cells, C-RAN and O-DAS systems, 5G hardware and even macrosites.
The site “is a quick and powerful solution to today’s inefficient process of wireless network deployment,” TeleWorld CEO Shervin Gerami said in a press release. “It is a huge win for property owners and mobile operators who will see new revenue streams, lower costs, and greatly accelerated 4G and 5G network deployments as a massive surge of high-speed connected devices and applications come online.”
TeleWorld provides network services to the fixed-line and wireless telecom industries. Its clients include all four major U.S. carriers as well as American Tower and Crown Castle, the two largest U.S. tower companies.
While small cells have generated a tremendous amount of buzz for years, the market has largely failed to live up to expectations due in part to logistical hurdles. While the process of deploying traditional towers has become streamlined and simplified over the years, a blueprint for deploying small cells has yet to be developed.
Carriers must find optimal locations and then negotiate terms with countless local landowners, and some rollouts have been delayed due to zoning problems and other municipal issues. Similarly, most property owners and managers have little experience selling or leasing space to carriers, and often have difficulty gaining access to them.
“The problem with small cells is that they’re not like a tower where there’s a known process,” said Iain Gillott of iGR told FierceWireless recently. “There’s an established model there for a tower. That does not exist for a small cell. It’s as simple as that.”
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