Boingo, a company that already offers up WiFi at many airports in the US and many around the world, already has the largest indoor DAS network, is now working with carriers to deploy small cells at military bases and event venues. Small Cells is largely how Boingo’s network is setup in airports, making it easy to add plenty of bandwidth in an airport without interfering with Air Traffic Control and airplanes. And now they are looking to expand their DAS network to event venues and military bases.
Carriers have been turning to Small Cells to help densify their networks and make it a better experience for their customers. This is important now with users using more data than ever before, and having more devices than they have typically had in the past. Small Cells allow carriers to add more bandwidth to their network as well as adding better coverage to their existing network.
Sprint and Boingo had already signed a deal together, to offload some WiFi coverage. Which is part of the reason why Sprint customers get free Boingo access currently. Boingo had announced that they had another Tier 1 carrier, but has not announced who that carrier is. Many are speculating that it could be AT&T, but nothing has been confirmed. Now Boingo’s CEO is saying that they are working with “multiple carriers”, but still no announcements have been made. Which is leading to even more speculation, as you would expect.
Boingo is mostly targeting military bases and event venues with their Small Cells seeing as that is where there are usually a lot of people at the same time. Like Madison Square Garden, you can have thousands of people there all day long, but during a Rangers game, you’ll add about another 10,000 people, and having Small Cells around there means that users will still have a great experience using their phones and what not. Military Bases are much the same. You typically have a ton of soldiers there, and they do still want to be able to call their family and talk to them every once in a while, so rolling out Small Cells at military bases are definitely important.