ip.access passes half million milestone in 3G small cells

CAMBRIDGE, UK: UK-based small cell technology developer and manufacturer, ip.access, confirmed that its Oyster 3G femto technology is powering more than 500,000 Access Points deployed live in homes, offices and mobile network hotspots worldwide.

Such is the rate of growth and deployment of the company’s small cell technology; it expects to pass the one million milestone next year. The announcement comes after recent independent market analysis from Infonetics Research confirmed that ip.access has the leading market share of femtocell units deployed.

Oyster 3G technology from ip.access is used in its femtocell and picocell deployments worldwide. The company numbers more than 60 operator partners for its 3G and 2G small cell technology. Major customers include Cisco, which uses Oyster 3G core technology in its 3G MicroCell solution for AT&T in America – the world’s largest consumer femtocell roll-out.

Making the announcement, Simon Brown, ip.access CEO said: “The 3G small cell market is now really accelerating – consumer femtocells, enterprise and retail picocells, public hot-spots and the move towards metro-zones on 3G and 4G networks are all driving the adoption of small cell technology.

“Nothing gives a bigger coverage and capacity boost – or delivers more from the available radio spectrum – than the move to small cell technology. At ip.access, we are firmly in the vanguard of both the deployment and the development of small cell solutions."

ip.access' Oyster 3G system was among the earliest commercial femtocell solutions when it was first launched in 2007. Today, as the company expects to see deployments more than double in the next 12 to 18 months, Oyster 3G technology is integral to the company’s full product line which includes C-class residential units, S-class Access Points for shops and small offices, and the E-Class enterprise picocells for larger offices and public locations.

Recently, ip.access also announced the OysterCatcher solution, a remote diagnostics and management tool which can fine tune deployed femtocells and picocells to help improve performance and adapt to changing radio environments.

“Our experience of mass market deployment and the ability to scale up product solutions give us an undoubted edge in the market," said Brown. “We have learned, for example, that even apparently quite small changes – such as new software release on a smartphone handset – might require changes to femtocell radio parameters. With OysterCatcher, we can capture this information, process it and remotely fine tune the small cell to cope with any changes.

“It is developments such as these that have fuelled our growth to the half million milestone and will continue to enable ip.access to successfully deliver market scale and grow past one million deployments next year."