Huawei comes to the small-cell rescue

At last week's CTIA wireless conference in New Orleans, the talk was all about small-cell technology to alleviate difficulties carriers are having with spectrum -- they don't have enough of it. The FCC's solution was a technological fix rather than a regulatory one, touting a technology now commonly known as "small cells." The idea is to provide small wireless "towers" that can plug-in to already existing internet infrastructure to transmit cellular signal and alleviate traffic congestion. Conveniently, China-based Huawei, second in supplying the world's wireless communication infrastructure, revealed its new "eRelay" small-cell hardware solution as well, and released the details in a press release this week. Huawei's is the first large-scale commercial small-cell solution and, according to president Deng Taihua, "promotes small cell deployment, improves capacity for hotspot areas and ultimately improves user experience."