Itsy-bitsy teeny cell towers are coming

The cell phone capacity problem is getting bigger by the day, but one potential solution has wireless carriers thinking smaller -- way smaller.

As smartphone and tablet usage soars, the giant cell towers that mobile devices communicate with are getting overloaded. As a result, cell phone companies have begun to get behind the idea of "small cells": tiny antennas that you can hold in your hand. Small cells make much more efficient use than traditional towers of carriers' increasingly precious wireless spectrum. The low-powered devices can cut back on interference, improve cell reception indoors and become Wi-Fi hotspots to offload traffic from cramped cellular networks. Such spectrum-maximizing tricks are becoming increasingly important as mobile traffic booms.

By 2016, more than half of the Internet's traffic will come from mobile devices, and 71% of that will be big video files, according to Cisco's latest Mobile Visual Networking Index, the industry's most comprehensive annual study.