Small-cells-as-a-service provider Cloudberry Mobile, this week revealed that it is just about ready to switch on what will be the world’s first carrier-neutral small cell network in Norway.

The startup acquired a 2.6GHz spectrum licence from Nextnet in Norway earlier this year for an undisclosed sum. The company’s business model is to build and operate small cell networks on behalf of operator partners but in order to avoid sub-letting spectrum from carriers the company is now buying up its own spectrum.

Cloudberry said the Carrier-Neutral Small Cell network solves the problems of coverage blackspots and slow data speeds by expanding coverage and offloading traffic from the macro network.

Existing devices will simply roam onto the Cloudberry network when it provides the strongest signal. The first network is being deployed in Norway in nationwide 2.6Ghz spectrum, will provide a model that can be replicated in markets globally, the company said.

Moreover, Tom Guldberg, CEO of Cloudberry Mobile, said that surveys in Europe show that 70-80 per cent of carriers wants to outsource small cell operations to third parties. The company is also in talks with enterprises that are dissatisfied with their mobile indoor coverage, although the primary focus will be on delivering services to carriers.

The company said its small cells are 3G/4G networks in a box the size of a wifi router that can be installed in minutes and form networks that intelligently manage themselves.

“The past five years have seen mobile devices evolve beyond all recognition, however this has not been mirrored by the mobile networks they run on. While phones get smarter, the old problems of coverage blackspots and throttled data are in many cases getting worse,” said Guldberg. “The carrier-neutral small cell network offers the solution to this problem, changing the mobile network in the same way the introduction of the iPhone did for phones.”

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