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It is clear that 2009 will be the year when the femtocell has to prove itself in the commercial world, and the likely tightening of operator spending may push some carriers to seek to enhance their networks using the tiny indoor base stations rather than major macrocell expansion. Softbank is geared to roll out femtocells early next year, but another frontrunner, Telefonica O2, has opted to carry out further trials in the UK and probably Spain, rather than going commercial in the first half of 2009.

The operator ran trials with equipment from NEC - which incorporates the femtocell from UK-based Ubiquisys in its gateway product - and from ZTE. Now it wants to conduct further tests to gather more detailed data on customer response and demands, and on performance and potential interference with the macro network. All these issues need to be addressed in full before going live on a wide scale, said insiders, and further vendors may be invited to take part in the trials, as well as the existing partners.

Although Softbank is going for an accelerated roll-out programme as it seeks to steal a march on its larger rivals, most operators are likely to go through a multi-phased trials process like O2, especially as it seems that femtocells, once largely seen as a spot solution to improve indoor coverage, are now moving to the center of the 3G/4G expansion strategy, and could support a highly significant new set of business models for fixed/mobile convergence, low cost 3G extension, and a relatively low risk entry to mobile broadband via well targeted hotzones.

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