The compact base station market opportunity for 3G/4G networks is expected to reach $13 billion by 2015 with initial deployments being set up in the 2011-12 timeframe, according to a ABI Research white paper. 

New advances in multicore chipset technology are driving this paradigm shift where femtocell-like cost and deployment efficiencies are being used for macro-, micro-, and pico BTS architectures.

As the increasing density of users, smart phone capabilities, and data usage patterns puts increasing pressure on the mobile networks, there is an ever-growing gap between peak and average throughput rates. With the advent of 4G networks this gap could reach as much as 100x its current level.

“The pizza-box base station is now becoming a reality, and the key here lies in the cost efficiencies of deploying it” says Aditya Kaul, practice director for mobile networks at ABI Research. “This should not be seen as a threat to traditional macro base stations, but as a timely complement which will help operators meet the growing capacity demands on their networks,” Kaul adds .

White paper focuses on the need for additional layers of pico and microcells which will alleviate some of the capacity pressure that networks feel today. However, to enable these additional layers there is the need for low cost, passively cooled compact base stations that can be conveniently deployed. Further white paper looks at the evolving architecture of radio access networks from traditional cabinet base stations to remote radio heads, further evolving to compact base stations. The technologies that are believed to see benefit from compact base stations include HSPA, LTE and WiMAX.

Refer white paper “The Emergence of Compact Base Stations in the New RAN Architecture Paradigm” for more.