Nokia Networks small cell has introduced a double-capacity small cell base station Flexi Zone G2 Pico, and an indoor planning service enhanced by 3-D geolocation. The first Flexi Zone G2 Pico base station to be available will be a 3.5 GHz TD-LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation Pico with 4x4 MIMO for advanced LTE markets. This all-in-one small cell also integrates Wi-Fi 802.11ac for additional capacity in a compact 8 liter, 8 kg unit for easy siting and installation.

The new Pico solution will be based on the Nokia Flexi Zone G2 Micro/Pico base station platform that features a 4-pipe radio and twice the processing capability of the Flexi Zone Micro/Pico base station. This provides scope for other future variants in support of very high performance HetNets.

Similar to other Flexi Zone base stations, Flexi Zone G2 Pico BTS offers full software and feature parity of Nokia Networks macro base stations and packs the same Smart Scheduler and HetNet interference management features for best-in-class performance. For example, DL Interference Shaping, introduced earlier this year, is also available on all the Flexi Zone base stations, and boosts HetNet capacity by increasing cell edge performance by up to 30%.

Likewise, Flexi Zone G2 Pico BTS can also be used as a stand alone unit or paired with Nokia’s Flexi Zone Controller to create large small cell clusters that act as one eNodeB. 

According to company, Saudi operator Zain KSA awarded Nokia a contract to deploy its Flexi Zone 4G small cells solution to boost performance in strategic locations. Vodafone Group has also selected Nokia Networks as a global supplier of its LTE and Wi-Fi outdoor small cells products, to provide additional capacity where it is needed most.

Nokia Networks also is enhancing its small cells portfolio with the new features to improve HetNet performance. These include 1.9 GHz/PCS frequency support for Nokia Flexi Lite base station; new frequency variants for Flexi Zone base stations, including 1.9 GHz/PCS for Flexi Zone outdoor Micro/Pico base stations; 1.9 GHz/PCS, AWS and TD-LTE 2.3 GHz for Flexi Zone Indoor Pico base stations; and 1.8 GHz for Flexi Zone Pico-Enhanced base station with integral Wi-Fi. In addition, Non Line of Sight (NLoS) microwave backhaul for Flexi Lite and Flexi Zone base stations based on Dragonwave Harmony Radio Lite enabling a fast small cell roll-out in the Sub 6 GHz band.