Picocell

A picocell is a small cellular base station typically covering a small area, such as in-building (offices, shopping malls, train stations, stock exchanges, etc.), or more recently in-aircraft. In cellular networks, picocells are typically used to extend coverage to indoor areas where outdoor signals do not reach well, or to add network capacity in areas with very dense phone usage, such as train stations or stadiums. Picocells provide coverage and capacity in areas difficult or expensive to reach using the more traditional macrocell approach.

Overview

In cellular wireless networks, such as GSM, the picocell base station is typically a low-cost, small (typically the size of a ream of A4 paper), reasonably simple unit that connects to a base station controller (BSC). Multiple picocell 'heads' connect to each BSC: the BSC performs radio resource management and hand-over functions, and aggregates data to be passed to the mobile switching centre (MSC) or the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN).