The Small Cell Forum (SCF) has launched its Enterprise Advisory Council (EAC) which will aim to work towards developing industry ties and working beside businesses and institutions to solve the issue of poor cellular coverage.
The EAC’s founding members are commercial real-estate services advisers Camden Livng and CBRE, General Motors, Grange Hotels, healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, Marriott International, Texas A&M University and WeWork, a shared office provider.
A target engagement campaign has already been started with the hospitality sector by the SCF, which is first in a series of outreach programmes targeting specific vertical markets.
A study suggests that as many as two thirds of business travellers say they will not return to a hotel or venue with irregular or inadequate wireless access. Moreover, the public take for granted that they can use their cellular devices wherever they go and become frustrated where there is poor coverage. Small cells offer a robust, secure and cost effective way to provide comprehensive high-speed indoor voice and data coverage that is as easy for venues to install and manage as Wi-Fi.
David Orloff, chair of the Small Cell Forum, said: “Whether it is not-spots frustrating guests on the upper levels of a hotel, or a lack of connectivity on factory floors, poor or patchy cellular coverage is a major issue across all enterprises, and increasingly this lack of access to reliable critical communications will directly impact organisations’ bottom lines.”
As reported by Wireless Week earlier this month, Verizon is highly ambitious in developing small cells, but analysts at research firm MoffettNathanson expressed their scepticism that the company has the “financial capacity to do so in more than a relatively small portion of the country.” As the firm noted, “building wired networks is an expensive proposition.”
You can read the full SCF announcement here.
