Nokia continues to extend the capabilities of its small cells portfolio with a range of innovations that includes a new base station category.

The Nokia Flexi Zone Mini-Macro Base Station is as compact and easy to deploy as a small cell, yet delivers 2 x 20W power to enable operators to quickly and cost effectively fill coverage holes.

Other innovations launched for Mobile World Congress 2016 include support for LTE-Advanced Pro LWA capabilities integrated into small cells, to enable unlicensed spectrum to deliver very high data rates to subscribers, and new synchronization options delivering significant reductions in small cell deployment costs.

Demonstrations of innovative technologies will include Nokia Flexi Zone Controller scheduling and coordination features that substantially increase cell edge performance and reduce the complexity of indoor small cell planning.

As networks transform for the cloud era and people increasingly take cloud applications into use, small cells will play a key supporting role to help ensure performance and coverage expectations are met.

Small cell deployment in urban areas is vastly simplified by Nokia SCORE (Site Certified for Overall Relative Efficiency), a new service innovation which provides a straightforward rating of qualified sites based on the cost of base station deployment and network performance.

Operators can now easily compare and select sites that best suit their needs, benefitting from up to 30% faster deployment and up to 20% lower total cost of ownership (TCO) thanks to the shorter deployment cycle.

At Mobile World Congress, Nokia will also be showcasing its extended small cells portfolio that now combines the Nokia and Alcatel Lucent ranges.

Flexi Zone enhancements in more detail:
Equivalent in size to a small cell, Nokia Flexi Zone Mini-Macro LTE Base Station delivers the macro-like RF power (2 x 20W). This allows operators to provide broad coverage in locations unsuitable for macro base station deployment.

As well as being an easy way to provide rural coverage, the base station opens up new use cases such as low cost indoor coverage for high rise buildings from an outdoor deployment on an adjacent building (‘outside-in’), and for discreet deployments in sensitive residential areas.

Nokia will demonstrate innovative interference mitigation technology in it’s Flexi Zone Controller. Downlink Coordinated Scheduling and Uplink Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) can raise network performance for users at the cell edge by up to 150%.

By automatically managing inter-cell interference, the technologies could also help lower deployment costs by reducing the need for detailed indoor radio network planning and eliminating subsequent re-planning as the indoor environment changes.

Nokia Flexi Zone Multiband G2 base stations are the first small cells to feature integrated 80 MHz LWA support based on LTE-Advanced Pro standards.

They enable operators to offer superior Quality of Service through LTE, while also using Wi-Fi on unlicensed spectrum to provide high data rates for subscribers.

Likewise, the G2 indoor base station launched in 2015 is now also multiband, and like its outdoor sibling, can now support up to three radio access technologies in one unit.

With Nokia Flexi Zone G2 Multiband Base Station, operators will be able to achieve peak data rates of more than 1 Gbps.

For indoor small cells that lack easy access to GPS signals, new Flexi Zone timing and synchronization features make deployment simpler and significantly more cost effective.

Nokia is also introducing SCORE (Site Certified for Overall Relative Efficiency) to find the best locations for small cell deployment.

Nokia uses its GIS data and Geo location tools to rate qualified sites on deployment cost, network performance and maintenance cost, then assigns a relative value from one to 100.

This allows an operator to compare sites easily and accelerate deployment, while ensuring the best network experience at the lowest cost. Nokia has a database of more than 1 million qualified sites which can be made available to operators

Stéphane Téral, senior research director & advisor, Mobile Infrastructure and Carrier Economics, IHS said: “Up to 90% of small cells’ total cost of ownership may be attributed to deployment costs. Key challenges that operators face include site acquisition, network planning, HetNet co-existence and delivering exceptional service quality in increasingly dense deployments. Nokia is directly addressing these concerns with more capable base stations, advanced interference management, simpler indoor deployments and providing quick means for operators to choose optimal sites with innovations like SCORE.”

Randy Cox, head of Small Cells Product Management at Nokia, said: “We have a laser-like focus on driving network evolution towards ultra-dense, multi-connectivity HetNets that are easier to deploy and which can provide a differentiating customer experience for operators. With these innovations, we’re bringing unprecedented RF power to extend the coverage capabilities of our Flexi Zone small cell solutions. This new SC product category will open up new ways for operators to use small cell technology to meet the growing coverage and capacity needs of their customers in urban, residential and rural areas.”