Small Cells and X2 Interface

In the Release-8/9 of 3GPP, X2 interface between Small Cells and between Small Cells and Macro cells was not available. In Release-10 and 11, this was made available as shown in the picture above.

X2 is not only useful for lossless handovers in LTE/LTE-A but is also very useful for Interference management using eICIC (enhanced Inter Cell Interference Management) feature introduced in Rel-10.

More details on this enhancement is available in 3GPP TS 36.300 here.

Case Study: Mexico Prisons and Metrocells

Couple of interesting tweets from the Small cells world Summit recently caught my attention, unfortunately I am not able to find more information. Having said that the tweets are self-explanatory:

#SCWS2013 Mexican prisons use jammers to block prisoners making calls. This jamming bleeds outside the prison grounds causing problems!
— Small Cells (@small_cells) June 6, 2013

#SCWS2013 Solution was metro cells located in the residential areas outside the prison - to give the people connectivity - not the prisoners
— Small Cells (@small_cells) June 6, 2013

Here is a link about the Mexican prison jammers blocking neighbours cellular service.

Small Cell World Summit 2013: Video and Report

David Chambers, Think Small Cell, has compiled a quick summary of the recently concluded Small Cells World Summit which is worth reading and available here. A video made by him is embedded below: