TI and Ubiquisys to develop 'small cells'.

Small cells are installed in public spaces and outdoors to provide complementary data capacity in the network, routed via the internet to a femtocell gateway in an operator's core network. 

Like femtocells, small cells provide relief for the traditional RAN infrastructure.

Ubiquisys’ small cells use femtocell software, which provides self-configuration, self-organising-networks, and adaptive behaviour – increasing the density of capacity deployment with low operating costs. 

‘Macrocell augmentation, spectrum additions and LTE provide some of the extra capacity, but most of the load will be shouldered by a major proliferation in public small cells,’ states Ubiquisys, ‘by creating a much denser mobile network closer to the point of use, users will experience data performance that approaches headline rates.’

TI's WCDMA/LTE chips are said to deliver more processing power than existing femtocell-based small cells so providing a migration path to LTE, according to Ubiquisys.

The TI/Ubiquisys collaboration is aimed at producing a new range of dual-mode WCDMA/LTE small cells for public space and metro environments, such as base stations designed for mounting on walls or street furniture, with performance up to 150Mbps LTE plus 64 calls/84Mbps WCDMA. The first products will be available in 1H 2012.