San Francisco, CA – September 12, 2017 – Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today unveiled its new Small Cell product portfolio for home, enterprise and outdoor service areas to help expand network coverage and capacity and meet next-generation communications needs. The new portfolio will include advanced network technologies using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), as well as a cloud managed service for deployment of small cell products.

In addition, the company announced the commercial availability of its first CBRS products for outdoor deployments for offloading LTE traffic via hotspots with compact size and weight. With support for up to two CBRS carriers, it will enter U.S. operator field trials in Q4 2017, with expected commercial availability at that time.

Samsung’s Small Cell portfolio will be showcased at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Americas 2017 at the Samsung Networks booth (South Hall, Stand 616).

Several market forces, from an increasing number of connected devices to challenging indoor signal penetration, are driving demand for small cells. Samsung, a pioneer in small cell deployments, is expanding its portfolio to meet the demand with support for licensed, unlicensed, and shared spectrum. The portfolio serves three diverse environments—home, enterprise and outdoor—and uses different spectrum bands including licensed LTE, CBRS, LAA, as well as Wi-Fi.

“Our small cell portfolio provides operators and enterprises with new options to address their increasing mobile connectivity needs,” said Imran Akbar, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Enterprise, Samsung Electronics America. “As demonstrated by our memberships to prominent industry organizations, such as the Small Cell Forum, CBRS Alliance and MulteFire Alliance, as well as our small cell expertise, Samsung is committed to innovating cost-effective small cell solutions using LTE technology.”

The portfolio will enable operators to offload LTE traffic and enhance indoor user experiences, while helping create new revenue models with private LTE networks, which are increasingly popular among enterprises. The portfolio is comprised of:

  • CBRS Portfolio: CBRS technology allows use of up to 150MHz of shared spectrum in the 3.5GHz spectrum. Samsung’s CBRS solutions are designed for indoor use in homes and enterprises, as well as non-traditional operators, such as cable operators entering wireless or businesses creating private LTE networks. The spectrum band also supports compact and high-power products for outdoor applications.

With support for Wi-Fi and integrated cellular IoT (CAT-M1) technologies, Samsung’s CBRS products advance smart homes and enhance indoor and outdoor wireless networks in businesses or public environments. Samsung kicks off CBRS field trials with U.S. tier one operators in Q4 2017.

  • LAA Small Cell Solution: LAA offers operators an efficient and cost-effective approach to increasing network capacity and speeds by aggregating the 5GHz unlicensed spectrum with their licensed bands. Samsung’s LAA small cell solution enables the combination of one licensed LTE carrier with two unlicensed LTE carriers for increased capacity in indoor environments. Trials for the LAA small cell are expected to take place in early 2018.
  • Samsung Cloud Managed Service: This saves time and money for the operation, management and monitoring of wireless networks – including a diverse range of small cell and WLAN products such as LTE, CBRS, LAA and Wi-Fi. It also enables those who control multiple cellular and Wi-Fi networks to manage them in one cloud-based platform, greatly simplifying wireless network administration.

CBRS Testing with Federated Wireless

Samsung recently demonstrated its commitment to the commercialization of small cell solutions for operators and enterprises through interoperability testing with the Federated Wireless Spectrum Controller, which allocates frequency blocks within the FCC’s spectrum-sharing framework for the 3.5GHz band.

“Samsung is a market leader in the small cell space, and this announcement sends a strong signal to the market about the important role CBRS shared spectrum platforms will play in wireless deployments moving forward,” said Iyad Tarazi, CEO, Federated Wireless. “The opportunity that freeing 150 MHz of shared spectrum opens up for operators and enterprises cannot be overstated, and Samsung offers customers the ability to take advantage of this opportunity with their new portfolio.”

During MWC Americas, Samsung will demonstrate 20MHz carrier in the 3.5GHz band to highlight CBRS’ potential. The demo consists of a delay and interruption-free high-definition video streaming service, enabled by the CBRS small cell, Samsung’s next generation core (vCore), as well as modified Samsung Galaxy S8+ smartphones.

For further information on Samsung’s Small Cell portfolio, visit here. Samsung’s Network booth at MWC Americas (South Hall, Stand 616) is available by reservation (contact: j.varman@sea.samsung.com).