ip.access passes one million small cell milestone

UK: Leading small cell systems vendor and manufacturer ip.access has confirmed it had become the first 3G small cell provider to ship one million residential units.

Announcing the achievement, CEO Simon Brown said: “The small cell wave is breaking and breaking fast – with our second half-million coming in little more than a year. Today, one million units delivered confirms our ability to provide a product that meets mass market demand - and all our indicators point to even greater acceleration in market adoption.”

Brown also revealed that 2012 had been a breakthrough year in terms of contract wins and partner agreements for the company.

“We participated in all but a handful of the major small cell contracts in the marketplace, and chalked up a success rate of more than 90 per cent,” he said. “In fact, in 2012 we closed around 40 small cell contracts and we see this as compelling market evidence confirming that ip.access’ strategy, products, and ability to deliver are propelling us to win unrivalled market share and operator support.”

Brown also added that the company’s origins in the enterprise market and public access, small cell solutions, proven over more than ten years and with live deployments in more than 100 networks globally, had been a key factor in its market success in 2012. He confirmed that the latest round of contract wins included as many as five framework agreements with international operator groups, the largest of which with a tier one operator covers 15 country networks.

“Our solutions are now both operator and mass market end-user tested and are performing to the highest quality of service standards. Working with our partners has been invaluable to that process as the deployments have accelerated to the scale that we see today,” said Brown. “Indeed, there are lessons to be learned from analyzing and diagnosing performance and macro network interaction on a small cell layer of this magnitude that simply cannot be picked up on smaller scale deployments,” he concluded.

Brown underlined that the company’s commitment to providing end-to-end small cell solutions was key to its market success with both operators and partners.

“In 2012 we also closed a strategic partnership with a major macro network equipment provider who will be selling the ip.access end-to-end solution of access points, gateways and management systems. Indeed, all our contract wins last year cover multi-technology solutions,” he said, “and the development of our nanoConverge Gateway has been instrumental in our success.”

The nanoConverge Gateway enables 3G small cells to be deployed into existing mobile networks and supported by an existing 2G network Gateway. It also allows for future 4G LTE cells to be supported by a 3G gateway.

“Our investment in product development and innovation has moved us into a prime market position,” said ip.access founder and CTO Nick Johnson.

“The nanoConverge gateway solution enables operators to extend their investment in existing and planned network infrastructure and is a key part of our portfolio,” said Johnson. “2012 also saw us ship our first LTE small cells to trial customers, and make tremendous progress on future proofing the small cell portfolio by supporting all combinations of 2G, 3G, 4G and WiFi. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona we will be showcasing some of that breakthrough work,” he added.