Summary Bullets:
• Vendors unveiled a variety of new small-cell base station products at Mobile World Congress (MWC), meeting demand for 5G network densification and indoor penetration.
• Some new small cells address specific trends such as neutral-host networks and improved uplink performance needed for video streaming and artificial intelligence (AI) use cases.
Multiple mobile network equipment vendors announced new small-cell base station products at the MWC event in Barcelona (Spain) this month, including major RAN vendors and lesser-known names and spanning indoor and outdoor products of various architectures. Some of these addressed specific trends such as neutral-host networks and improved uplink performance needed for video streaming and artificial intelligence (AI) use cases.
Airspan launched a portfolio of new small cells under the AirUnity brand that the company once applied, years ago, to self-backhauling indoor small cells. The new portfolio supports 4G, 5G, standalone and non-standalone, time-division (TD) and frequency-division (FD) duplex options. It is based on chipsets from EdgeQ, based in Silicon-Valley, California (US). At MWC26, an AirUnity product, the AirUnity 3032, was on display in the stand of Japanese operator Rakuten Mobile, which announced a deal with Airspan in late-2025 to supply radios to some 5,000 outdoor macrocell sites.
Comba Telecom, based in Singapore, introduced a new 5G Enterprise Picocell, a dual-band indoor product that supports both 4G and 5G with 125 mW and 250 mW of output power, respectively. Comba emphasized the product’s support for 128 simultaneous users, TD and FD spectrum, and Power over Ethernet.
Ericsson unveiled the new IRU 8850, a hub unit for its distributed indoor radio dot system that quadruples uplink capacity.
Huawei unveiled the latest version of its LampSite indoor small-cell solution. The new LampSite iSharing is not the first version of LampSite to support multi-operator sharing. It is instead distinguished by a multi-functional signal processing card (known as a multi-mode extended hybrid card, or MEHC) that allows operators to connect up to three baseband units directly to a distributed control unit (used for signal aggregation) for neutral-host use cases. Among other benefits, these neutral-host architectures allow operators to avoid having to deploy their own radio end units.
Meanwhile, Sunwave Communications, based in China, promoted its new all-in-one 5G outdoor small cell, the nCELL-M (actually unveiled at a trade show in Brazil last fall). Based on Qualcomm’s 4-nanometer FSM200 platform, with 4×5 watts of output power, the nCELL-M weighs less than 12 kg and is less than 11 liters in size.
MWC26 also saw the elevation of some small-cell vendors that were chosen by AI chip giant Nvidia as partners whose radios will be interoperable with Nvidia’s Aerial RAN platform, adding to its primary partnership in the RAN space with Nokia. Eridan is based in the US, and Liteon Technology and WNC are based in Taiwan. (More information on this trio can be found in a separate report.)
In addition, Quectel, based in Shanghai (China) introduced five new small-cell antennas, including a ceiling-mountable omnidirectional antenna as well as antennas for stadiums and some featuring single- and dual-beam lens options.
To see several new small-cell products make their debut at MWC26 – while, say, new massive MIMO units were in relatively short supply – was unsurprising. After all, many 5G network rollouts are mature, and operators are focused on monetizing those existing assets as much as possible. At the same time, 5G network densification is needed in some places, including in indoor spaces, where most mobile traffic terminates. Vendors leveraging new generations of chip sets and bringing new generations of equipment to market in 2026 can better compete for this demand, and new product designs can address specific industry trends such as neutral host networks and enhanced uplinks.
Shortly before MWC26, the Small Cell Forum, an industry organization focused on promoting small cells and aiding their adoption, released an update of its five-year forecast for small-cell deployment. The group adjusted its forecast slightly to account for the negative effect of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, including the impact of new international tariffs. But the group expects small-cell radio deployment to grow nearly 23% in 2026 and to keep growing markedly until a peak in 2028. The new gear unveiled at MWC26 could help fuel that growth.
Annual Small-Cell Deployments and Upgrades
Source: Small Cell Forum, February 2026
Note: Beyond small cells, more analysis of RAN-related activity at MWC26 can be found here, here, and here.