Nokia Siemens Networks Flexi Zone wins innovation award

Small Cell Forum recognizes innovative design and technology of the mobile broadband specialist’s small cell approach

Nokia Siemens Networks has won top honors at the Small Cell Forum Industry Awards 2012 in the “small cell network element design and technology innovation” category. The Small Cell Forum has recognized the company’s Flexi Zone suite* for its innovative Hot Zone approach. This approach facilitates cost-effective small cell deployment for increased capacity in congested mobile broadband networks.

“Nokia Siemens Networks’ Flexi Zone is undeniably ambitious, going beyond small cell deployments to adaptive clustering of small cell access points. More importantly, the solution was designed to deal with real-world operator HetNet** challenges including interference mitigation, handover engineering and backhaul,” said Peter Jarich, service director, Current Analysis.

Nokia Siemens Networks launched Flexi Zone at Mobile World Congress 2012. Based on the company’s Liquid Radio architecture, Flexi Zone comprises multiple, inter-connected low-power small cells that use a common resource pool managed flexibly by a zone controller. These clusters of multi-radio access points complement the macro-cellular network to deliver the best coverage and capacity where and when required. Flexi Zone allows local offloading of internet traffic, saving up to 80% of transport and mobile packet core costs. By managing interfaces, simplifying backhaul and significantly reducing operational costs, it also reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by 50% when compared with traditional small pico and micro cell deployments or the addition of new sites.

“This award further strengthens Nokia Siemens Networks’ commitment to provide operators with cost-effective small cell solutions that extend network capacity and coverage in high density usage areas,” said Randy Cox, head of small cells product management, Nokia Siemens Networks. “Flexi Zone also ensures that users enjoy a far superior mobile broadband experience in congested Hot Zones.”

Established in 2009, the Small Cell Forum Industry Awards recognize outstanding achievements within, and contributions to the small cell industry.

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About The Small Cell Forum

The Small Cell Forum, formerly known as the Femto Forum, supports the wide-scale adoption of small cells www.smallcellforum.org.

Small cells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum, are operator-managed and feature edge-based intelligence. They provide improved cellular coverage, capacity and applications for homes and enterprises as well as metropolitan and rural public spaces. They include technologies variously described as femtocells, picocells, microcells and metrocells. The Forum has in excess of 140 members including 67 operators representing more than 2.92 billion mobile subscribers – 47 per cent of the global total – as well as telecoms hardware and software vendors, content providers and innovative start-ups.

About Nokia Siemens Networks

Nokia Siemens Networks is the world’s specialist in mobile broadband. From the first ever call on GSM, to the first call on LTE, we operate at the forefront of each generation of mobile technology. Our global experts invent the new capabilities our customers need in their networks. We provide the world’s most efficient mobile networks, the intelligence to maximize the value of those networks, and the services to make it all work seamlessly.

With headquarters in Espoo, Finland, we operate in over 150 countries and had net sales of over 14 billion euros in 2011. http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com