Four days of cutting edge innovation, industry insight and packed schedules - once again Mobile World Congress lived up to expectations.
For us this year was all about big devices, big processors and big networks to cope with extreme data demands.
Four key themes stood out for us: bigger and quicker devices; the mobile wallet; higher-order modulation; and het-nets and small cell backhaul.
Easing congestion to give consumers a better quality of experience is one of many benefits small cells will bring to urban hot spots - but how will they impact backhaul costs?
Outdoor small cell networks will result in a significant increase in the number of cell sites, which in turn means many new backhaul connections will be needed.
If operators continue to use the same backhaul technologies that were used for macro sites, there will be a significant rise in transport costs.
Find out the small cell backhaul cost reduction opportunities and the cost-effective solutions on offer to operators.
Trawling through the tweets, articles and blogs surrounding Mobile World Congress this year several strong themes seem to be emerging, from the need for improved user Quality of Experience, to small cells and the challenge to deploy LTE networks quickly and cost effectively.
We will once again be at the event joining other industry leaders in these discussions. Our CTO, Dr John Naylon, will also be presenting on the energy efficiency challenges facing operators when deploying their networks.
Quality of service is set to be at the top of operator priorities for 2012, but how will they deal with data demands and why is backhaul key to their success?
With the number of smartphone sales set to increase from 342.4m to 439.1m in 2012, we look at the RAN technologies operators will be deploying to cope with this data demand and why selecting a backhaul solution which can cope with the new profile of packet data is essential to success.
Small cells have been the hot topic for 2011.
They have regularly been paraded on the catwalks of industry events as the saviour of networks struggling under the strain of mobile data growth.
But the underpinning backhaul solution is not as clear cut.
A scene has consistently been painted where thousands of femto, pico and WiFi based ‘small cells’ are deployed in urban environments – a vision likely to turn into reality (albeit long term) as mobile operators look to deliver highly targeted capacity to their customers.
But providing a backhaul solution to the small cells may not be as clear cut as originally thought. There is a bigger picture to consider, where a solution may take a variety of forms. It is in this space that a clear pecking order is starting to develop.
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