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Femtocell market matures as US carriers move into action

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 15 January, 2009

READ MORE: Femtocells | US

Recessions do not usually prove the best time to test a brand new technology platform, but in 2009, the promise of expanding networks at low cost is outweighing risk for many carriers. Hence operator plans to start deploying femtocells this year, in the hope of enhancing capacity and introducing new networks or applications, without big bang budgets. Europe has led the way in trials, but the US and Japan look set to be first with commercial services. Verizon Wireless insiders reiterated this week that it hoped to use femtocells in phase one of its LTE roll-out, with the first city scheduled for the turn of the year; and AT&T has started inviting customers to take part in a "city-sized test" of the mini, indoor base stations for HSPA.

There are various other indications that this nascent approach to wireless deployment is gaining the maturity necessary for acceptance by major operators - the 3GPP recently ratified the bulk of the base standards for what it calls 'home node B'; tier one vendors and, most significantly, the Taiwanese ODM community, are getting involved, making mass volume and the operators' target sub-$100 price tag look achievable; and the established vendors are broadening their supply chains. So we see one of the pioneers, Ubiquisys - vying with fellow UK start-up ip.access for the crown of first tier one commercial deployment - adding a second chip vendor to its existing agreement with another UK player, picoChip.

The femto maker is preparing an upgrade to its ZoneGate device, which will use processors from picoChip - which has largely had the merchant femto space to itself until now - and newer entrant, Percello of Israel. The W-CDMA device will start trialling in the second half of the year, once the latest picoChip product, PC302, and the first Percello offering, PRC6000, are in silicon.

Meanwhile, the US vendors are ramping up femto plans. Ars Technica published a customer email from AT&T soliciting testers, which said: "AT&T's new product is a small, security-enabled cellular base station that easily connects to your home DSL or cable internet, providing a reliable wireless signal for any 3G phone in every room of your house." This product is expected to come from Cisco and ip.access.

Sprint already offers a femtocell of sorts, in the form of the Samsung Airave, and Verizon has been rumored to be readying a similar offering to fill CDMA gaps. More importantly, it will shortly start discussing with vendors how it can use femtocells to accelerate its early LTE moves, and possibly adopt a 'hotzone' approach, to lower the cost and risk of keeping its pledge of having its first city live by the start of next year - even with pre-standard kit. "Femtocells have to be considered in that plan," said one insider.