Nine new members from across the wireless and Internet ecosystems have joined the Small Cell Forum (SCF) to strengthen efforts in laying robust and interoperable 5G networks. The Forum’s new members include Ciena, Druid, Fastback Networks, InCoax, NextNav, Plasma Antennas, Raycap, Shenzen Gongjin Electronics Co and Technicolor.
As networks continue to densify and evolve, Small Cell Forum is becoming an increasingly vital hub for industry activity around densification and 5G. It is gathering many inputs from a wide range of members and partner organizations, and is starting to coordinate these to create a unified output which will underpin future platforms. These inputs come from Operators, the Forum’s Membership, Enterprise Customers, and Industry Partnerships. The industry will continue to look toward the Small Cell Forum for guidelines, models, processes, and technology understanding to ensure a successful evolution toward hyperdense networks and 5G.
SCF’s existing members include BT Cable & Wireless, China Telecom, Ericsson, Huawei, iBwave, Intel, KT Corporation, Nokia, Orange and Telefónica. Collectively, SCF operator members serve more than 2 billion subscribers and operate more than 15 million hotspots globally.
Small Cell Forum also announced its newly elected board, which will continue to be chaired by AT&T’s David Orloff. The new board comprises of Piyush Raj (American Tower); Prabhakar Chitrapu (AT&T); Luigi Tarlazzi (CommScope); Mark Reudink (Crown Castle); Martin Ljungberg (Ericsson); Tormod Larsen (ExteNet Systems); Nansen Ding (Huawei); Mike Cronin (Node-H); Randy Cox (Nokia); Caleb Banke (Qualcomm Technologies Inc); Tareq Amin (Reliance Jio); Aya Mukaikubo (SoftBank Corp); Art King (SpiderCloud Wireless).
These announcements follow SCF’s first Partner Day event which was recently held in Atlanta, Georgia. This brought together many of the Forum’s partner organizations alongside whom they have launched work programs that can continue to realize SCF’s key initiatives – ‘Deploying Hyperdense Networks’ and ‘Enabling Digitized Enterprise’. These two themes continue to tie together all of the Forum’s projects across the HetNet and create a powerful framework for the transition to 5G.
