Ericsson to provide Wi-Fi network across India

Ozone Networks, India’s leading public Neutral Wi-Fi provider, has signed a Small Cell as a Service agreement with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) to provide a neutral carrier-grade Wi-Fi network across India.

Ericsson offers Small Cell as a Service with a variety of different business models to suit environments such as connected venues, connected streets and connected enterprises. This deal is an example of the connected venue application, as Ozone’s Wi-Fi network will serve restaurants, cafés, shops and malls.

Sanjeev Sarin, Chief Executive Officer at Ozone, says: “In today’s world, consumers like to be connected at all times, which means that network capacity becomes an extremely important factor. Deployment of Ericsson’s Small Cell as a Service offering will enable us to better manage consumer expectations in ultra-dense environments. The partnership will also ensure that Ozone is able to establish the neutral Wi-Fi model in India, which will help the Indian Government make the right to internet access a reality for every Indian.”

In the first stage of the project, Ericsson will provide Ozone with 30,000 Wi-Fi access points and network management nodes and tools, as well as a variety of options for monetizing the Wi-Fi network. These include opportunities for offering telecommunications operators the chance to reduce the data burden on their network by utilizing the neutral Wi-Fi network to carry some of the traffic.

Chris Houghton, Head of Region India at Ericsson, says: “Small Cell as a Service is an innovative offering that enables operators to increase network capacity in environments where it isn’t practical to build parallel networks. Our ability to plan, design and operate networks in all types of environments enables us to propose a package of services that is customized to meet any customer’s needs. In this particular project, we are discussing a variety of options that Ozone can use to monetize its network, including the possibility of data-offload agreements with other operators.”

Ericsson will provide Wi-Fi technology based on an as-a-Service model, and manage it according to a service level agreement for a period of five years.

Ericsson launched Small Cell as a Service at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With this offering, Ericsson provides small cell technology, designs, plans, builds and optimizes networks, and then manages them on behalf of its customers, based on long-term as-a-Service contracts. Ericsson has a comprehensive portfolio of carrier-grade Wi-Fi products that can be utilized to reduce deployment and troubleshooting time while collating valuable network statistics, trends and usage information.

What is Small Cell as a Service

Small Cell as a Service increases capacity where you need it most

In the Networked Society, where connectivity is the starting point for new ways of innovating, collaborating and socializing, there are few things more important than network capacity. In environments such as stadiums, busy streets and multi-story office blocks, large numbers of people gather – and they expect to be able to use data-heavy, video-centric applications on their mobile devices. At present, many networks can’t consistently deliver the downlink speeds required for streaming video.

Ericsson’s normal approach to maximizing capacity is to create heterogeneous networks by improving existing macro cells, densifying the macro network by adding additional macro cells and introducing complementary small cells. In some environments – such as certain stadiums, busy streets and multi-story office blocks – this approach isn’t feasible because of factors such as cost and lack of space for additional macro cells. In these cases, Ericsson’s solution is Small Cell as a Service.

ADVANTAGES OF SMALL CELL AS A SERVICE

There are several advantages to this approach. First, structural efficiencies are obtained since only one network will be used to provide capacity for multiple operators instead of having multiple networks running in parallel. Second, quality and complexity are addressed through the integration of radio access networks (RAN) and carrier-grade Wi-Fi – something that only Ericsson can currently achieve. An enhanced end-user experience is enabled through traffic steering, which ensures that the end user always has the best possible connection when both RAN and Wi-Fi technologies are available by driving traffic to mobile broadband by default and off-loading to Wi-Fi when necessary. Finally, cost-efficiency is achieved thanks to Ericsson’s scale in managed services (Ericsson provides managed services for networks that together serve more than 1 billion subscribers worldwide) and broadcast operations.