We talk a lot about Femtocells as we are interested to see how they develop in the market place and how network providers can use them to their benefit and ultimately for the benefit of their customers.
We have previously discussed Vodafone’s offering here and it seems they have made some pricing changes and repositioned their product for the market place.
Vodafone has recently relaunched their Femtocell with a large price cut from £160 down to £50. It has also launched a marketing campaign aimed at educating the consumer as to the benefits of the device and at the same time renamed the unit from being the ‘Vodafone Home Gateway’ to ‘Sure Signal’.
Vodafone have not commented on the reason for this new Femtocell enthusiasm, but we have seen reports that make mention of Vodafone’s recent launch of the iPhone and as we know from O2′s experience, this device places high data demand on the network so maybe this is Vodafone’s way to try to offload some of that data traffic onto the Femtocell.
As always we watch this new launch with interest.
More information from the Vodafone site here
We see that a UK manufacturer of Femtocells has decided to make an attempt to go direct to the consumer market rather than the usual business model of via the Mobile Carriers.
Hay Systems Ltd have ignored the regular route of making deals with Mobile Carriers in favour of a straight to consumer sale. The problem they have is they will need to get agreement with the carriers to do this and so have launched a website www.femtonow.com where members of the public can register their interest so they can approach carriers with potential numbers of consumers.
The HSL product has the ability to work with any Mobile Carrier, or even multiple Mobile Carriers, over a regular broadband connection. To achieve this HSL needs to do two things: obtain a radio spectrum in which to operate, and integrate into the mobile Carrier’s back end.
We think HSL are going to face a few obstacles, firstly their Femtocell is 2G rather than 3G and every network operator in the UK is moving towards 3G deployment of Femtocells. Secondly the Femtocell is attractive to a Mobile Carrier as it is a way to lock your customer’s onto your network increasing the ‘stickyness’ of contracts so it is unlikely a carrier would encourage technology that allows customers to move easily from network to network.
We wish Hay Systems well and hope they can succeed in this venture.
See the Press release from HSL here.
For Femtocells to gain traction in the marketplace then they need to go mainstream into the high street and sit on shelves along side regualr ADSL routers. Netgear seem to be one of the first to try and make this possible by launching the DVG834GH voice gateway based on Ubiquisys 3G Femtocell technology.
The gateway acts as seven products in one, it combines private mobile base station, ADSL2+ Modem, Router, 10/100 Wired LAN Switch, 802.11g Wireless Access Point, Voice over IP (VoIP), and SPI double firewall.
It will be interesting to see how sales of these as stand alone units will progress as up until now most units are sold as part of a mobile carrier bundle.
For more information have a look here and here.
We have seen various reports apearing about new developments of indoor 3G repeaters that maybe a viable alternative to Femtocells, the main advantage is that unlike Femtocells they do not need an ADSL circuit to become operational, this will mean they are easier to deploy and so takeup may be quicker. Wireless repeaters have been around for a long time but tend to be used in large indoor spaces such as airports, stations etc and so are designed for multiconversation and would not be cost effective in a home or SOHO environment.
The first report we saw from Coiler Corporation of Taiwan who are an industry leader in the manufacturing of indoor repeaters, it will be introducing the new Atom AT-2200 Residential 3G Repeater at the 2009 Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona from 16th – 19th February.
The deployment of Coiler’s Atom will eliminate expensive site-maintenance costs associated with traditional coverage extension methods for small indoor areas. It also eliminates the need for major network modifications and new rollout strategies required by the deployment of the femtocells. Since, the repeater amplifies off-air signal, there is no need for ADSL connection, which makes the technology especially interesting for the countries where ADSL penetration is low or where access to fixed broadband would require mobile operator to seek a complicated and lengthy commercial solution. The Atom offers a viable coverage solution for the today’s needs of operators, with deployment cost and time both significantly lower than femtocell technology.
See the full story here
We will watch this one with interest as we see other similar products emerging that will help boost the indoor data rates making the deployment of wireless broadband easier and more viable.
We are still hearing a lot in the Press about Femtocells however it seems several of the large mobile operators are having second thoughts due to unresolved technical issues and unclear business cases.
The concerns were voiced at the recent Femtocell Europe 2008 conference when SFR said it had delayed selecting a Femtocell supplier because of the undefined industry standards, they said they do not now expect to deploy this technology until sometime next year at the earliest.
Vodafone Group owns 44 per cent of SFR and they participated in Vodafone’s group-level request for proposals for Femtocells last year, but it now said “we are assessing another technology in parallel,” said Thierry Berthouloux, network solutions director at SFR. “However, we have decided to extend that assessment period and have put this process on hold to give equipment suppliers time to consolidate roadmaps. There’s no point making a decision today.”
According to those close to the situation, the issue for the major operators in agreeing to a standard is the need for clarity on 3GPP status and the lack of resource being provided by the larger femtocell vendors to achieve this.
For more on this story:
See the full story here
Visit the 3GPP Homepage here
We are seeing these mentioned in the press a lot so decided to do some research so lets ask and answer a few questions about them:
What is a Femtocell?
A Femtocell was originally known as an Access Point Base Station and is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in the home or small business environments (SOHO). It is designed to connect to the service provider’s network via broadband (usually DSL), the current designs under development will support 2 to 5 mobile phones in a residential setting.
A Femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage indoors, especially where access could otherwise be limited or unavailable. The Femtocell incorporates the functionality of a typical base station but extends it to allow a simpler, self contained deployment.
What are the Advantages of a Femtocell?
Femtocells are an another way to deliver the benefits of Fixed Mobile Convergence. The main difference is that most FMC architectures require a dual-mode (GSM/3G and WiFi) handset, while a femtocell-based deployment will work with the users current mobile handsets. The cellular operator also benefits from the improved capacity and coverage but also can reduce both capital expenditure and operating expense. There could also be an opportunity for new services and reduced costs.
When can we Expect to See Them in Use?
A lot of the carriers here in the UK and around the world are testing units and/or running trials – there are a lot of technical challenges facing the service providers as they will have to operate their networks in a completely different way plus it is vital that the Femtocells are pllug and play so users can buy them and simply plug them in at home.
For more information visit the Femtocell Forum http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/index.php
Category GSM/3G, VoIP | 
Author admin | 
22 January, 2010 11:09 am | 
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