SVP of Technology Dave Mayo said small cells haven’t been a big focus for carrier

In a recent interview at the Tower and Small Cells Summit in Las Vegas, Dave Mayo, SVP of technology at T-Mobile US, discussed the surging carrier’s approach to small cells, macro network densification, spectrum positioning and more.

During the event, co-located with the CTIA Super Mobility event, Mayo said small cells, up until the last year, hadn’t been a part of T-Mobile US’ growth strategy, which recently saw the longtime No. 4 carrier overtake rival Sprint for the No. 3 spot in domestic carrier subscriptions.

Mayo said the telecom industry as a whole hasn’t matured the small cells deployment process to make large-scale roll outs feasible.

“It’s a journey and we’re still, in my view, you know, let me back up a second and say, in the last three years we’ve really focused on deploying an LTE network,” Mayo said. “We have not focused on small cells. Some other people have done that. It’s only been, frankly, the last six to 12 months we’ve thought about it.

“We’re just now in the, I call it the infancy, in my view, of really industrializing” the small cells deployment process, he continued. “They need to become much lower cost and much more repeatable with a predictable interval. I don’t think we, as an industry, have matured that whole process to the point it needs to be matured. And we will do that.”

Instead of small cells, Mayo discussed T-Mobile US’ focus on building a nationwide LTE network based off a dense macro site configuration.

Mayo discussed the carrier’s backhaul strategy, “which is really, substantially all fiber. We made that decision really, really early on. We wanted to take advantage of fiber with our HSPA network. We saw that as an opportunity … seven or eight years ago now. We’ve been pretty aggressive … in terms of rolling fiber out across the network.”

Mayo touted T-Mobile US coverage, “specifically growing our LTE footprint to 300 million pops this year, which is really pretty exciting,” and also discussed how, while T-Mobile US has aggressively pursued low-band spectrum, the carrier’s midband spectrum assets forced densification at the macro layer, which proved to be a boon.

“We’ve often talked about our Achilles’ heel being not having low-band spectrum,” Mayo said. “Frankly, it’s actually turned out, as we think about data, it’s actually turned into a big benefit for the business because of the cell density. It was a little bit of our nemesis if I wind the clock back, but, frankly, it has turned into a huge benefit.

“We’re not having to add a bunch of sites on a midband grid to create speed. We kind of started there,” he said. But, “We’re very interested in acquiring additional low-band spectrum.”

For more coverage of the Tower and Small Cells Summit, as well as from CTIA Super Mobility, click here.