The two main changes in how the new LTE RAN will be designed are the use of small cells and of distributed macrocells. In the first survey, Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung were the leaders in public access metrocells. They remain strong contenders, but the leader is now Cisco thanks to its acquisition of Ubiquisys, which led the field in the previous quarter for innovation, but was challenged by its lack of scale. With Cisco behind it, that restriction is removed.
Ericsson has trailed in the small cell trend, though announcements in the fall could affect the next set of Imago rankings. For now, its market impact is mainly in its distributed macro layer products, especially AIR, and its dominance of the macro base station field in general remains powerful. Thanks to recent announcements in software driven macro RAN, Nokia Siemens now overtakes Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung in terms of innovation.
These results are the second release from our Imago offering, which ranks vendors in various key infrastructure categories. A combination of quantitative and qualitative measures are used with different weighting for each. The overall rankings are based on product innovation (R&D investment, unique features, range of features, market window) and market impact (market share, channels to market, access to carriers, marketing strength).
Metrocells:
Product innovation | Market impact | Overall ranking | |
ALU | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Samsung | 2 | 3 | 3 |
NEC | 5 | 8 | 5 |
NSN | 4 | 3 | 4 |
Ip.access | 6 | 9 | 6 |
Cisco | 1 | 1 | 1 |
ZTE | 8 | 7 | 8 |
Huawei | 7 | 5 | 7 |
Ericsson | 9 | 6 | 9 |
In product innovation, we rate Ubiquisys (now Cisco) as the lead innovator, when its own developments are considered in light of Cisco’s work in metrocells and metro Wi-Fi, and the acquisition of Intucell. Alcatel-Lucent has been a major innovator since the start of the small cell wave, but is now equalled by Samsung and Nokia Siemens is also placing additional resources into this area with some interesting results.