Nokia, Telefónica Chile complete industry's largest indoor small cell deployment in Santiago shopping mall

NEW DELHI: Finland based telecom giant Nokia and Telefónica Chile have completed the largest indoor deployment of small cells to meet the ever-growing 3G and 4G data demands of mobile device users at the Costanera shopping center in Santiago, Chile.

Today's consumers expect the highest quality of mobile service as an essential part of the shopping experience - allowing them to make voice and video calls, share images and access the Internet. With shopping and food outlets on six floors across 168,000 m2 of retail floorspace and multiple parking levels, the Costanera center in Santiago presents a challenge for operators to provide high-quality mobile coverage to thousands of visitors, particularly deep within the building, as the thick reinforced concrete structure can hinder radio signals from the operator's macro network.

To ensure Telefónica Chile meets the connectivity expectations of its subscribers visiting the Costanera center, Nokia replaced and upgraded the existing distributed antenna system (DAS) with a high-capacity, high-coverage Flexi Zone small cells network. Nokia's Flexi Zone small cells technology provides a cost-effective alternative to DAS, offering faster data speeds and supporting a higher number of subscribers. Ease of deployment and the ability to upgrade 3G small cells to 4G LTE will allow Telefónica Chile to efficiently scale capacity as customer demand continues to evolve.

Gustavo Marambio, Network Director at Telefónica Chile, said: "Telefónica is committed to ensuring our customers receive the highest quality of service. We are constantly looking for innovative technologies to provide the best connectivity to our users."

Dimitri Diliani, head of Latin America Market at Nokia, said: "This project is a great example of how operators can benefit from using the Nokia Flexi Zone small cell family to meet the demands of mobile device users in a high-traffic indoor environment. The size of our small cells means they are unobtrusive in locations such as this while delivering huge capacity. They manage the demands of the surrounding area in which they are deployed, so in this instance can handle interference from the outdoor macro network ensuring that all subscribers remain on the dedicated indoor small cell network, even when near the edge of the building."