Small cells are a big opportunity for mobile service providers. That means they’re a big opportunity for data center service providers, too — if they understand the nuances of mobile network planning.

As their name implies, small cells are compact base stations designed to provide the gigabit speeds that people expect from 5G today and 6G tomorrow.

In fact, mobile service providers see small cells as key for recouping their multi-billion-dollar 5G spectrum and infrastructure investments because they open up new market opportunities and revenue streams.

A prime example is how small cells deliver fixed wireless access (FWA) services in cities and suburbs. With 5G FWA, mobile service providers now can compete with telcos and cable providers for lucrative markets such as residential broadband and SD-WAN for enterprise branch offices.

The FWA market opportunity is a major reason why the installed base of 5G small cells will grow from 4.6 million worldwide in 2022 to more than 60 million by 2030, according to the Small Cell Forum. This should translate into new opportunities for adjacent players like data centers and tower companies.

Every one of those new small cells needs fiber backhaul to its mobile service provider’s core network, which in turn needs interconnection with other service providers’ networks.

Data center service providers are among those ideally positioned to provide those interconnection services.

Mobile service providers also need data centers for interconnection with cloud providers to support consumer and enterprise applications such as Edge computing. Autonomous vehicles and IoT devices for Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing are just a few examples of Edge computing applications that put compute power and storage closer to end users.

The global Edge computing market was worth $16.45 billion in 2023 and is on track to have a compound annual growth rate of 36.9 percent through 2030, according to Grand View Research. That demand highlights why major tower/site companies such as American Tower and SBA have acquired data center operators.

The cloud also will play an increasingly fundamental role in building out 5G small cell networks because mobile service providers are steadily migrating toward virtualized radio access network (vRAN) infrastructure such as Open RAN.

The Small Cell Forum expects "a sharp leap in urban Open RAN deployments after 2027, which will drive a CAGR of 82 percent despite a slow start. By 2030, Open RAN will account for 88 percent of deployments of small cell vRANs or clusters.” Hosting that vRAN infrastructure is another major revenue opportunity for data center service providers.

Elevate your asset portfolio’s visibility and value

Interestingly, many data center service providers won’t be able to capitalize on these opportunities because they don’t make it easy for mobile service providers to find and review their asset portfolios. To use a real estate metaphor, it’s like having prime property that no one knows is for sale or lease.

Mobile service providers need to build out their small cell networks as quickly as possible so they can turn on the new revenue streams that FWA enables.

Accurate, granular, continually updated information about each data center service provider’s portfolio enables them to quickly make informed decisions such as site selection. Thus, a data center must be visible to mobile service providers at the moment they are making those network planning decisions.

For example, 5G standards have latency requirements that determine the maximum distance between a small cell and the data center that provides its hosted vRAN infrastructure.

When comparing data center service providers, mobile service providers need detailed, up-to-date information about the assets available at each site such as optical transport, switching, or routing functionality.

Interconnection and service activation are other examples. Mobile service providers need accurate information about the other network service providers and cloud providers that have a presence at each data center. This enables them to quickly roll out value-added services such as Edge computing and stay ahead of market demand and trends.

These types of information all need to be in an industry-standard format and nomenclature to ensure that mobile service providers can easily see a data center’s portfolio.

This standardization eliminates misunderstandings about capabilities and helps speed small cell network buildouts because mobile service providers can be confident that each choice is the best choice.

Finally, the information should be presented in a way that makes it quick and easy for mobile service providers to analyze and act on.

The ideal interface is an interactive digital map where site acquisition and network engineering teams simply enter a street address or GPS coordinates to see all of the functionality at each data center in the surrounding area.

This kind of GUI streamlines network planning and interconnection by eliminating the tedious process of manually matching location data to a map.

Speed is more than Gbps and milliseconds

5G is synonymous with speed. For consumers and businesses, that speed is measured in gigabits and milliseconds.

For mobile service providers, it’s also measured in how quickly they can build out their small cell networks to capture market share and turn on new revenue streams.

Data center service providers can accelerate those buildouts by sharing their asset portfolio in the same format and framework that mobile service providers and the rest of the telecom industry use more than 30,000 times each day. This consistency, clarity, and accuracy streamline network planning, interconnection, and other processes.

As a result, it provides data center service providers with a competitive advantage: By using this industry-standard framework and nomenclature, they make it easier for mobile service providers to see and understand their asset portfolio.

This elevates them as potential partners in the eyes of mobile service providers because they speak the same language, all of which helps drive more business and revenue.