ip.access, a UK-based provider of small cell equipment, announced an extended agreement with Intel that it said opens up markets beyond its traditional mobile operator customers.
The company is utilising Intel's Transcede T3K and T2K system-on-a-chip (SoC) products in its new Viper end-to-end small cell platform. Intel's SoC family is designed for use in enterprise, residential and rural market access points, which ip.access said will allow it to extend its market reach beyond network operators and exploit emerging global opportunities in the small cell market.
"We see the continued growth of demand for mobile communications around the globe and know that next generation small cells are the only way to meet it," said ip.access CEO Malcolm Gordon.
The company opted to expand an existing agreement with Intel because the U.S. chip maker's "solutions extend our LTE and multi-standard roadmaps in a way that no-one else can match," Gordon added.
In a statement announcing the move, ip.access said its Viper platform offers the lowest-cost products for home, small business and rural deployments, and also high performance products for enterprise and campuses. The platform features in-house self-organising features and enhanced multi-operator capabilities for vertical markets. The company added that Viper includes its core-network gateways and EMS solutions, making it suitable for traditional small cell deployments, unplanned rollouts by end-users, and deployment "as a service" by the company and its partners.
The combination of self-organisation and Intel's SoC family will "accelerate the transition towards LTE in mass market wireless access, including LTE-LAA, citizens broadband, and licensed shared access," the company stated.
Naser Adas, general manager of the heterogeneous network solutions group at Intel, said the company has partnered with ip.access for several years, and that the UK company has "a unique vision of the way the HetNet wireless access market will develop."
The extended agreement will enable ip.access to "leverage Intel's SoC platforms to meet the world's need for wireless communication for licensed, unlicensed and fifth generation mobile networks," Adas added.
For more:
- see this ip.access announcement
Related articles:
Report: UK businesses lose over £30M a week due to poor mobile signals
KPN deploys Ericsson's latest small cell product in Amsterdam bus stop
EMEA proves Ericsson's most lucrative market for small cell Radio Dot system
Dell'Oro: LTE macro and small cell RAN market to exceed $24B by 2019
Vodafone and JCDecaux sign global agreement to roll out small cells