Eight hundred outdoor small cells in London and beyond
When it comes to delivering outdoor small cells, experience matters. And, working in close partnership with the mobile network operators (MNOs), we have more than 800 small cells live in towns and cities across the country. So, if you’re a local authority wondering how to enhance mobile connectivity in your community, read on to find out how small cells can make a big impact.
What are outdoor small cells?
Outdoor small cells are around the size of a shoebox and can be attached to existing street furniture such as lampposts. They provide additional mobile capacity in busy areas with high demand, such as on high streets or outside major tourist attractions, where lots of people want to access voice and data services at once. Because the outdoor small cells process user demand themselves, they can relieve some of the mobile traffic from the outdoor network and enhance the customer experience.
Outdoor small cells can often be deployed under permitted development rights, which means they can start enhancing the customer experience fairly quickly, especially when compared with building a new mast in an area.
We work with all the MNOs to deploy small cells on their behalf. The MNOs are constantly monitoring and optimising their radio networks to ensure the best experience for their customers. And when they identify areas of high demand that could benefit from outdoor small cells, they can choose to work with a neutral host provider such as Freshwave to deploy the cells on their behalf.
An outdoor small cell attached to a lamp post.
What is an open access agreement?
An open access agreement is the most popular model currently with local authorities (LAs) looking to boost mobile connectivity in their areas. It’s a non-exclusive approach which makes it easier for the MNOs to access, deploy and share council-owned street furniture, like lamp posts, for their digital infrastructure. Open access agreements allow LAs to retain full control of their assets and engage with multiple MNOs since they are non-exclusive.
We’ve been working with LAs using open access agreements since 2020. In fact, we worked with Croydon Council to sign the first ever open access agreement in the UK! This led to the deployment of more than 60 outdoor small cells in Croydon which have been benefiting residents, businesses and visitors in the area for many years now.
Having an open access agreement in place signals that an LA is “open for business” when it comes to an MNO deploying outdoor small cells to enhance mobile connectivity in their area. The MNOs invest significant sums of money in technology when they deploy outdoor small cells. Having an open access agreement signed helps attract inward investment to the area and speeds up and simplifies the process.
We also signed an open access agreement with Sutton Council in 2022. Councillor Sunita Gordon, Lead Member for Resources, said: “I’m pleased to see us making good progress to improve the digital connectivity within Sutton. This will be a huge boost to residents, particularly those living, working or visiting the so called ‘not-spots’ and will also be a very welcome improvement to our infrastructure for local businesses.”
In London specifically, boroughs can access advice on signing open access agreements from sub-regional organisations Central London Forward, Local London, South London Partnership and West London Alliance.
If you’d like to read a step-by-step guide of how we work with LAs to deploy outdoor small cells once there’s demand from an MNO, you can read about that process here.
How much experience in deploying outdoor small cells do Freshwave have?
In short, lots! Birmingham City Council, Manchester City Council, Oxfordshire County Council, and Swansea Council are just a few of the LAs we’ve signed open access agreements with and deployed outdoor small cells with.
We have open access agreements in place with more than 40 LAs around the UK and we’ve already deployed in more than 20 of them. We’re proud to work with all the MNOs to deploy outdoor small cells for the benefit of their customers. And having these open access agreements in place with the LAs has helped us to deploy more than 800 outdoor small cells for the MNOs around the UK.
Outdoor small cells bring real, measurable benefits to communities – not just better mobile coverage, but broader economic and social impact. By boosting capacity in high-demand areas, they support local businesses, improve access to digital services, and help futureproof towns and cities for the demands of a digital economy. For LAs, they offer a practical, low-impact way to enable 4G and 5G rollout, while unlocking opportunities for regeneration, smart infrastructure, and digital inclusion.
Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about outdoor small cells or open access agreements.