AirWalk offers enterprise femtocell for CDMA
Published: 19 March, 2009
READ MORE: Femtocells | CDMA
The femtocell market has started dividing into various classes of the tiny base stations - residential, enterprise and outdoor/carrier being the main ones - and there is considerable interest in developing femtos that support 8-16 users or even more, and can provide an alternative to Wi-Fi for indoor coverage, fixed/mobile convergence and zoned tariffs within corporate offices.
Companies like ip.access have been working on such products for the W-CDMA arena, and now AirWalk has joined the party on the CDMA side with its EdgePoint Pro, which it will officially unveil at the CTIA show next month.
The EdgePoint Pro supports CDMA EV-DO connections for broadband data and 1xRTT for voice, with AirWalk claiming that many enterprises want to do away with landlines if the cellphone can be used as the only handset, but at low cost when within the building. The company's CEO, Serge Pequeux, said: "EdgePoint PRO can contribute to cellular usage by extending seamless service into the enterprise. In-building minutes of use are offered at a fixed rate while supporting additional enterprise voice and data applications." He claims a network of femtos could "replace the corporate WLan entirely".
The new femtocell boasts a clustering feature that allows a group of femtos to act as a network, supporting soft hand-off between multiple units and the macro network. A single EdgePoint PRO supports up to 28 users with 200mW of power, and incorporates the base transceiver station, base station controller, packet control function, and operations and maintenance (O&M).
AirWalk has added enterprise features that allow the phone to act as an extension of the IP PBX, with features like four-number dialing, call forwarding, waiting and directory services. In future, the vendor says, a SIP-based femto network could integrate seamlessly with an IMS architecture, though most companies will need a convergence server to link the new architecture to legacy voice systems. AirWalk has demonstrated such a solution with Tatara and Tango Networks.
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