Femtocell market update for week of 25 Jan 2010

More Sure Signal news

Several positive Sure Signal reviews have appeared on the web this week.  James Hargrave calls it “an excellent and extremely useful product and good value for money at this price”.  Mark Bridge on the fonecast blog calls the device “impressive”, and despite a slight reservation about paying Vodafone for the privilege of being able to make more calls, he is glad to have the choice; “Had I been using any other UK network, I could still be running upstairs every time I wanted to send a text,” he says.  Meanwhile, Flora Graham on the Crave gadget blog notes how easy it is to set up and use the Sure Signal.

Moby1 believes Vodafone’s success in selling 100,000 iPhones in a single week is down to the quality of its 3G network, Sure Signal included.  And if you happen to know what digit all standard UK mobile phone numbers begin with (here’s a clue – all UK mobile numbers start 07…), then you can enter The Independent’s competition to win a free Sure Signal femtocell.

Free Mobile & femtocells

DSL Prime reports comments by Free.fr founder Xavier Niel at a seminar organized by La Tribune.  Apparently, he said that the company is ready to offer a femto as an option with the Freebox, even though they don’t expect to begin their 3G service until 2012.  (There follows some wild speculation about femtocell prices.)  There’s more on the Free Mobile femtocell here (in French).

ip.access announces plug’n'play picocell

Have you heard that picocells are expensive to deploy?  This is the myth that some femtocell vendors are happy to perpetuate, but plug’n’play installation is not limited only to femtocells.  ip.access has announced automated BTS pre-configuration for its nanoGSM picocells, enabling self-installation by the end customer with no specialist skills or on-site configuration.  Once the customer has installed the picocell, it connects automatically to the BSC and can then come directly into service.

Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich says “We’ve long wanted ip.access to extend femto-type deployment supports to its nanoGSM product.  Doing so has just made its market-leading picocell more competitive, and set the stage for more discussions around SON [self-organising networks] in the macro network.”

So, what exactly is the difference between a picocell and a femtocell?  The clue is in the name – pico and femto refer to the size of the cell.  Here’s a simple guide…

• femto = very small cell (home size)
• pico = somewhat larger cell (office size)
• micro = bigger still (public area hotspot)
• macro = biggest

So an ‘enterprise femtocell’ is a very small cell for use in offices, whereas a picocell is a somewhat larger cell (frequently also deployed in offices).  Perhaps not everyone would agree with this definition, but the truth is that size is the only real distinction.

Vendors focus on data offload

W-Fi network equipment company BelAir Networks says mobile operators are embracing Wi‑Fi as a way to ease the strain on their 3G networks, and (rather oddly) that this will help them “gain experience in obtaining the property rights they will need” for the small cell sites required by LTE.  Internet connections on AT&T’s Wi-Fi hotspots increased by a factor of 4 in 2009, with smartphones accounting for over 70% of connections in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile Stoke Inc. has unveiled the Stoke Mobile Data Offload solution.  It’s a new piece of network equipment that sits between the RNC and the SGSN, and diverts traffic bound for the Internet away from the mobile data core network.

FemtoZone @ MWC

Following a successful showing at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, the Femto Forum has announced details of the FemtoZone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  It will feature presentations from operators, vendors, analysts and other industry bodies, as well as public demos of femtocell applications.  Here’s the video from CES, in which Vice Chairman Andy Germano talks about femto applications.

Aircell raises huge funding round

Aircell has raised a new funding round of an astonishing $176 million for its GoGo in-flight Wi‑Fi service offering.  The service is provided by ground-based EV-DO basestations across the United States.  Aircell says it will have 1400 planes equipped with its technology by the end of 2010.  Can the company make money, when each plane costs $100k to fit?  And why does the FCC allow this service when it still doesn’t allow on-board picocells, which are even less likely to interfere with the aircraft’s systems?

Real LTE speeds tests

Consulting firm Northstream has tested TeliaSonera’s new commercial LTE network in Sweden and found that download speeds fall short of the promised “up to 50 Mbps.”  The downlink reached 12 Mbps, with upload speeds clocking 5 Mbps.  “It seems like the capacity drops off fast as the distance from a base station increases,” said Northstream CEO Bengt Nordström.  (Looks as though having your own private base station at home would be a good idea, then.)

Location, location, location (is that all?)

Here’s an interesting new technology.  WirelessWerx’s ‘location nodes’ (costing $80 each) are installed throughout a building in order to send accurate location information to the Public Safety Answering Point when someone dials 911.  But why not just use femtocells, and get extra network coverage and capacity as well as accurate location?

In other news…

• GSA says there are now 22 HSPA femtocell products.
• BBC shows femto-enabled Connected Home application on Ubiquisys femtocell.
• IT PRO says femtocells mean the end of not-spots.
• Futurity Media says a surprising number of people are prepared to buy their own femtocell.
• ip.access interview with bnet.tv at CES.
• Oman Air launches full mobile phone and Wi-Fi connectivity.
• Global fixed broadband subscriptions will reach half a billion in 2010.
• AT&T to invest heavily in its mobile network.
• Mindspeed targets integrated baseband device for femtocells.

Tweets

• “My N900 Maemo – configured – nothing really techy done yet. Notice that WiFi kills battery, good job have Femto in home & unlimited data”.
• Keith McMahon (of TeleBusillis): “Anecdotally, ‘Normal’ people starting to ask me about [femtocell] service now.”

Femtocell market update for week of 18 Jan 2010

“Only Vodafone can guarantee signal in your home”

Some analysts have doubted whether a mobile operator would ever make a big marketing splash with a ‘coverage only’ femtocell proposition for fear of implying that their network quality isn’t up to scratch.  However, that’s exactly what Vodafone is doing in the UK with its Sure Signal femtocell.  The advertising slogan on the billboard ads says “Only Vodafone can guarantee mobile signal in your home”.

By publicly acknowledging problems with mobile phone signals in homes and offices on all networks, Vodafone can exploit its first mover advantage with femtocells.  The company’s CEO Guy Laurence told The Telegraph “No other network in the UK can ensure a great mobile phone signal in the home …Customers tell us [Sure Signal] is life changing”.

Judging by the majority of comments in the blogosphere, this does indeed seem to be true. Mobiletech Addicts comments, “I was blown away, full signal strength with 3G too, I tested it all over the house, no fluctuation just a solid 5 bars and perfect call quality.”  Neither is it hard to find enthusiastic tweets:

• “Steve has the Vodafone femto cell in his house – it’s fantastic!”
• “Very easy to setup Vodafone femto cell too!”
• “Femto (or “Sure Signal”) now installed – what a difference. Full strength signal bars & can make / receive calls all over house!”

Of course, there are still some nay-sayers.  Mobile-Deals-Compared calls the Sure Signal “redundant technology”, believing that Wi-Fi is the answer instead (perhaps they should read the Femto Forum’s new white paper: Wireless in the home: the need for both 3G femtocells & Wi-Fi access points), and Shefaly Yogendra says mobile data traffic should be free, given that the Sure Signal is using the customer’s broadband connection.  Ovum’s Steven Hartley believes that a coverage proposition isn’t enough for the long term, commenting that “Price or bundle incentives will be needed to make this truly viable.”

However, clearly believing its customers want femtocells, Vodafone has invested in readying the device for a mass market rollout (e.g. adding web-based self-management of the whitelist of phones that can access the femtocell and expanding the list to 32 numbers).  Despite misleading reports implying that the ‘original’ Vodafone Access Gateway failed, Steven Hartley rightly points out that “Sure Signal is not a re-launch, but a ‘proper’ launch” – in other words, Vodafone is ready to ramp.

Lee McDougall, senior product marketing manager at Vodafone UK, gave revealing interviews to Think Femtocell and to Unstrung.  According to McDougall:

• Vodafone is prepared to increase the Sure Signal subsidy because the femtocell increases customer satisfaction and encourages customers to defect from other operators.  “We’re seeing really great benefits and feedback,” he said.
• Sales are running ahead of forecast, with the one-off payment option generally preferred to the monthly fee.
• Interestingly for those waiting to see femtocells integrated with home gateways and Wi-Fi routers, McDougall says Vodafone’s research shows customers are not ready for this.  They want to try out a standalone device before replacing their existing equipment.

Caroline Gabriel at Rethink Wireless and Natasha Lomas at Silicon.com were just two of the analysts who linked the Sure Signal femtocell with Vodafone’s recent launch of the iPhone in the UK, but Lee McDougall says that was “coincidental, but timely… just the way things panned out.”

Vodafone is pitching both the iPhone and the Sure Signal femtocell to business customers as well as consumers.

Sir David Brown auctioning the Femto Cake at Cellular 25

Enterprise Director Peter Kelly told Mobile News, “Uptake of Apple in the business market is increasing.  The quality of the service is a differentiator.  We can provide business customers with a Sure Signal [femtocell]”.  Kelly also hinted at Sure Signal sales volumes, saying “We are rolling them out to consumers and businesses in thousands”.

A Sure Signal femtocell was one of the prizes auctioned at the Cellular 25 event at the Science Museum in London this week.  The Informer reports on his ‘night at the museum’ including lots of coverage of femtocells.

Further details and pictures can be found here.

Peter Jarich says femtocells will finally ramp in 2010

Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich predicts that femtocells will make a breakthrough in 2010 following launches in Europe, the US and Asia.  Consistent with previous statements, Peter urges a “focus on applications” to create marketing propositions that go beyond simple coverage and capacity.  However, he acknowledges that the demand operators are seeing on their 3G networks means that “the need for femtos is greater than ever”.

Qualcomm says mobile broadband needs femtocells

According to Rasmus Hellberg, technical marketing director at Qualcomm, both HSPA+ and LTE will “hit limits in throughput and how efficiently they use available bandwidth”.  The solution requires “bringing many more low power network nodes closer to the users…and this means in practice bringing femtocells to the user”.  Meanwhile rumours persist that Qualcomm will demonstrate its femtocell chip at Mobile World Congress.

It’s the brickwork, stupid!

Dean Bubley comments that a Morgan Stanley’s recent Mobile Internet report underestimates short-term mobile data growth and over-estimates network capacity.  He also points out that in many cases it’s not apps that are soaking up network capacity, “it’s concrete and brickwork”. So the real mobile capacity increments will come from Wi-Fi and femtocells.

Femtocells to benefit from new mobile data pricing

Deloitte is forecasting that North American wireless carriers will move away from “all you can eat” data pricing plans and introduce usage-based pricing during 2010.  The analyst firm lists femtocells among the sectors most likely to benefit from this move.

More femto comments from the BBC

The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones has followed up last week’s Radio 4 interview with another blog posting in which he reveals that “the networks simply don’t have enough capacity to deal with the flood of data that has suddenly arrived”.  Commenting on the suggestion that femtocells could be part of the solution’, Cellan-Jones states “So far, the operators have proved as inept at marketing femtocells as they were at selling 3G a decade ago”.  But Vodafone’s Sure Signal marketing campaign seems set to change this.  Ads on the London Underground (which notoriously has no mobile phone coverage) and Spotify (used by early adopters with broadband connections) seem like clever ideas to me.

In other news…

• Fierce Wireless says mobile network infrastructure market will rebound in 2010.
• Borislow says femtoJack is “definitely legal” when “operating under a boat”.
• Seamless handoff a “major concern” with the femtoJack – (must be about number 487 on my list.)
• Lime Microsystems & Percello collaborate on femto reference design.
• Rupert Baines on realising the benefits of femtocells.
• Simon Saunders interviewed at CES by bnetTV News.

Update

This ABI Research piece adds an interesting perspective on the Vodafone Sure Signal launch.   Aditya Kaul believes Vodafone’s willingness to admit poor coverage indoors and in rural areas is “a huge leap of faith”, which could mark a significant turning point for the femtocell market.

Femtocells at Cellular 25

The 7-layer femto cake

Advert for Vodafone Sure Signal on the London tube

Simon Saunders in the Flight Gallery (ready for take-off)

Femtocells were a hot topic at the Cellular 25 event at the London Science Museum last night.  The event celebrated 25 years of mobile phones in the UK, and was attended by an all-star cast of mobile industry dignitaries.

First there were the billboard ads for Vodafone’s Sure Signal femtocell which lined the walls of Tube stations and  underground tunnels leading to the museum.

Then femtocells were discussed by a panel of the great and the good from across the UK mobile phone industry during the conference programme.

Finally, a 7-layer femto cake (donated by ip.access, picoChip, Ubiquisys and the Femto Forum) was auctioned at the end of the evening banquet in the famous Flight Gallery at the Science Museum, raising £250 towards a new gallery which will celebrate the history of communications.  Vodafone also contributed a Sure Signal femtocell to the auction.

Femtocell market update for week of 11 Jan 2010

Vodafone ramps up femtocell marketing

Vodafone UK has started actively marketing its femtocell.  The Vodafone Access Gateway has been rebranded ‘Sure Signal’ and now has a dedicated website showcasing the Williams family and their poor home reception on the wild coast of Northumberland.  There are new, cheaper prices as well – for post-paid subscribers paying at least £25 per month, Sure Signal can be bought for a one-off payment of £50.  Otherwise it’s £120.

The timing of Vodafone’s marketing effort is perhaps no coincidence, as the company also began selling the iPhone this week.  In its iPhone promotion, Vodafone is making specific references to the Sure Signal femtocell as a way of differentiating its network from O2, the former exclusive iPhone partner which had to apologise recently for the quality of its 3G network.

‘Free’ to offer femtocells in France

France’s new entrant 3G licence holder, Free, has said it will offer femtocells in France.  The company’s managing director, Maxime Lombardini, said that the femtocell will be incorporated into the next generation of the Freebox home gateway, and indicated that the he sees femtocells as a way to help accelerate the rollout of Free’s 3G network coverage.

Is Wi-Fi a threat to mobile operators?

Telecoms analysts at the Royal Bank of Scotland have raised concerns about Wi-Fi as an alternative to mobile data subscriptions.  Mobile operators are adopting ‘dual network’ strategies, using Wi-Fi to help offload data traffic from their macro networks, but RBS claims that this strategy exposes operators to cannibalisation of voice revenues from low-cost VoIP alternatives.

The Femto Forum has recently published a white paper concluding that there is a role for both Wi-Fi and femtocells as part of a mobile operator’s data strategy.  The paper, entitled ‘Wireless in the home: the need for both 3G femtocells & Wi-Fi access points’, is available on the Forum’s website.

Kineto announces ‘smart Wi-Fi offload’

Kineto Wireless has repositioned its UMA / GAN technology in an attempt to exploit the data offload opportunity.  The key challenge for UMA has always been lack of support in handsets, but now Kineto is offering a downloadable client for a variety of smartphones.  According to ABI Research, the client will initially be available for Android phones, with prototypes also in the works for the iPhone and Nokia devices.

The move makes sense because smartphones are causing many of the network problems currently being experienced by mobile operators, and UMA solves a major deficiency with Wi-Fi offload strategies – namely that Wi-Fi provides no service continuity with the macro network for the carrier’s own voice and messaging services.  With UMA, the carrier can offload data (and voice) traffic without offloading the customer entirely.

On the other hand, carriers must still deploy UMA Network Controller equipment in their core networks in order for the service to work.  ABI Research also points out remaining technical issues with handover not yet working, and notes that low-price calling over Wi-Fi has not really worked for operators in the past.  And Kineto’s suggestion that the cellular radio can be turned off when the phone is connected to Wi-Fi in order to eliminate the extra battery drain is surely far too fiddly for most people to be bothered with (although ABI suggests it may be possible for this to happen automatically).

Meanwhile, 3G data usage on mid-range handsets (which typically do not have Wi-Fi capabilities) is growing rapidly – see here, for example.  This week, Verizon is rumoured to be considering plans to charge higher data subscriptions on a range of EV-DO-capable 3G multimedia phones.

Controversy over usage-based data pricing

Last month Ralph de la Vega (AT&T Mobility CEO) told a conference in New York that “some form of usage-based pricing for [mobile] data is inevitable”.  Now Verizon’s CTO Dick Lynch has gone on record saying that his company will charge for data on its LTE network based on how much bandwidth subscribers use.  Although it’s not clear how metered billing will be implemented, Lynch argues that this approach will benefit most consumers because they would no longer be subsidising the bandwidth hogs.

The FCC has also been pondering the issue, and concurs that carriers should be allowed to experiment with usage-based pricing.  Commissioner Robert McDowell commented at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, “Net neutrality proponents say it should be an all-you-can-eat price.  But that will lead to gridlock.”

Fierce Wireless analyst Lynnette Luna suggests the idea of classes of service, in which subscribers would pay a premium for higher bandwidth and reliability.  “It’s a model most of us are accustomed to with our DSL operators,” she says.

magicJack debate rumbles on

The debate over magicJack’s so-called femtocell has continued in the blogosphere, with Engadget enraging its readers by pointing out some of the device’s deficiencies. It seems that some geeks, blinded by their dislike of the big wireless carriers, are perhaps overly keen to believe that a maverick outsider can beat AT&T and Verizon at their own game.

But the reality is that, whether legal or not, the magicJack service is not going to live up to expectations.  Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich comments in a research report that the FemtoJack “fails to live up to the simplicity and service consistency that is a hallmark of femtocells”, and concludes that the device “will be a failure”.  Jarich also points out that a “weak solution that offers poor call quality and limited service parity could well turn users against femtocells,” which explains why the femtocell industry is so exercised about magicJack.  That, and annoying headlines such as “magicJack Introduces Industry’s First Plug and Play Femtocell Technology” (which is, of course, wrong on all three points – not first, not plug and play, not a femtocell).

Femtocells on the BBC

The BBC’s main news station, Radio 4, ran an interview this week with technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and the former CTO of BT, Peter Cochrane.  Following 250 complaints about 3G network quality on Cellan-Jones’ blog, the pair discussed possible answers.  Cochrane described femtocells as “the most novel solution”.  “Isn’t that expensive?” asked veteran cantankerous interviewer John Humphries.  “No, it’s consumer technology,” replied Cochrane.  One observation by the ex BT executive is that people cluster when using mobile data.  A group of young people in a coffee shop will all want to look at same content at same time, but each on their own screens.

Other news…

• Will Qualcomm demo its femtocell chipset at MWC?
• Verizon to sell Samsung 3G femto in late 2010.
• Cable & Wireless sees femtocells replacing fixed lines with femtocells…
• …and David Chambers says landlines will be obsolete by 2025.
• node H demos HSUPA.
• Strong demand for Wi-Fi in consumer electronics.
• OnAir goes ‘on-ship’ with picocells.
• Carl Weinschenk says femtocells have had a “disappointing 2009”.
• More femtocell PR from CES…
• …but George Thiruva says femtocells were needed in the exhibition halls.
• Engadget on the demise of T-Mobile’s @Home service.
• FCC scraps plan to take spectrum from broadcasters.

Femtocell market update for the last few weeks

Apologies to regular readers (if there are any of you out there) for the lack of recent posts.  Here’s a quick summary of what’s been going on in the femtocell world over the last few weeks…

Optimus launches femtocell service

Portuguese operator Optimus quietly launched a femtocell service before Christmas.  The service, called Sinal On, uses Optimus’ own ADSL broadband infrastructure.  The femtocell device is available for €99.90 and there is a monthly fee of €7.70 which includes 50 free minutes of fixed-to-mobile calls.  Here’s the press release (in Portuguese).

Femtocells at CES

The Femto Forum had a stand and held a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.  This resulted in some publicity (not all of it 100% accurate).  I particularly liked this in one report: ‘There were a host of other possibilities [with femtocells] but I’ll admit that they had me with “You’ll see 5 bars whenever you’re home”… Faster, AT&T, please!’

Samsung had a new 3G (EV-DO) femtocell on show, and maverick US VoIP provider MagicJack announced a ‘femtocell’ which isn’t really a femtocell – it got quite a bit of coverage and caused some confusion.  (see here for details).

Mainstream femto press coverage

The Financial Times reported on O2’s apology to its customers for poor network quality, and highlighted Vodafone’s advantage in having a femtocell to improve indoor coverage.  Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph put femtocells on its front page, and included a video interview with picoChip’s Rupert Baines on its website.  Over the pond, the Wall Street Journal says femtocells are “poised to make an impact in 2010”.

T-Mobile ditches @Home

T-Mobile USA says it will stop selling its @Home Internet phone service, ending a near two-year attempt to enter the landline market.  According to reports, the company’s UMA HotSpot@Home service is not affected, but I’m jiggered if I can find any reference to it on the T-Mobile website.  The previous HotSpot@Home page now redirects to a generic tariffs page.  Most operators clearly see femtocells as a better bet, with T-Mobile USA and Orange France perceived to be the only carriers to have had any success with UMA.

New femtocell market analysis

• A new report from Light Reading has found that femtocell deployment is picking up steam in medium and large enterprises.
• Unstrung says “2010 is make or break for femtocells”.
• Fierce Wireless says 2009 was a year of “unfulfilled promise” for femtocells.

In other news…

• AT&T’s femtocell launch was the top 2009 story on Unstrung.
• T-Mobile NL uses Nextivity Smart Repeaters to improve coverage in its retail stores.
• Vodafone and Orange claim their networks are ready for the iPhone.  (There are reports of Vodafone marketing the VAG femtocell in association with its iPhone launch.)
• Will Franks explains why picoChip+CCPU does not amount to Ubiquisys (or ip.access, for that matter) – and he’s absolutely right!.
• What the enterprise IT manager should ask for before buying a femtocell.
• Genband claims the majority of femtocell security gateway deployments.
• Sprint Airave reportedly turns phone on automatically when entering home – bizarre!
• Is femtocell interference a red herring?
• New femtocell book published.
• Smartphones taking over from laptops as biggest users of Wi-Fi hotspots.
• Femtocells help cope with the “wireless data deluge”…
• …make that picocells.
• What’s inside a femtocell?
• ADC sells GSM base station and switching business to Altobridge.
• But who needs a femtocell when you have a cooking pot.

MagicJack launches ‘femtocell’ – are my trousers safe?

I have gone on record saying that I would eat my trousers if MagicJack launches a real femtocell.  Now the company has announced further details of the product, and I got to see it working last night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The technology is certainly impressive, but unfortunately its effect is to turn your sophisticated multi-function cellphone into a basic voice-only cordless telephone at home.

The MagicJack device is a tiny card that connects via USB to a PC running MagicJack software.  In the live demo, I took a standard GSM (2G) cellphone with a T-Mobile US SIM card within a few feet of the MagicJack device.  Immediately my phone received a call from MagicJack.  I entered a PIN code and was able to start making (free) calls (to US numbers only) from my cellphone right away through the MagicJack VoIP network.  The clever bit is that other people could still reach me on my T-Mobile number (although I’m not sure this still works if there is no existing T-Mobile coverage in the home).

You can only register one handset per device, but call quality is reasonable (with about a half-second time delay), and the effective range is similar to a femtocell.  According to the inventor Y.W. Sing, a standalone version will be available in future incorporating an ARM chip to run the MagicJack software (so there will be no need for a PC – you’ll just plug the device straight into the Internet).  Further details and pictures can be found in this interview with sliconAngle.

The MagicJack device is technically impressive, but there are a couple of serious catches…

Firstly, the device transmits without permission in T-Mobile’s licensed frequency band.  (Alternatively you can make it work in AT&T’s band – but still without permission.)  MagicJack believes this is legal, claiming that the spectrum licence doesn’t apply within your home, but this is extremely dubious (see comments here, for example).  One could argue that operators often turn a blind eye to illegal home repeaters which boost cellphone signal strength inside a house (often inadvertently causing problems elsewhere on the network).  However, unlike repeaters the MagicJack device cannibalises the operator’s voice revenues and is therefore less likely to be tolerated.  AT&T, T-Mobile USA and the FCC have so far refrained from commenting.

The second catch is that your mobile phone can only make voice calls through the MagicJack device.  Once your phone is registered, it can no longer send or receive SMS messages or access data services at home – MagicJack effectively turns it into no more than a basic cordless telephone.  According to IDG, MagicJack’s founder Dan Borislow expects the device to be used with “old phones that [people] haven’t been using”.  This makes a lot of sense – why would anyone want to cripple a shiny new 3G smartphone in the home by registering it onto a MagicJack device?

So, now for the all important question – am I going to eat my trousers?

No, I’m not.

According to the industry accepted definition, a femtocell is an operator managed device providing full service continuity with the regular outdoor network.  MagicJack is doing something quite different, going around the operators and offering only a basic voice service.  So it’s not a femtocell.

A real femtocell is always part of a mobile operator’s network.  It is managed by the operator to ensure compliance with the spectrum licence and a high quality of service.  Despite using operators’ licensed spectrum, MagicJack’s approach is to bypass the operator’s network.  They have not needed (or attempted) to meet operators’ requirements for service quality, features, security, standards or regulatory compliance – so the MagicJack device is a lot simpler than a real femtocell.

In fact, turning a 3G smartphone into a basic cordless telephone is pretty much the opposite of what a real femtocell does.

Femtocell market update for weeks of 7 & 14 December 2009

More details on China Unicom’s 3G Inn femto

Yu Ying Tao, General Manager of China Unicom, has provided further details of his company’s 3G Inn femtocell (for which Huawei has claimed credit).  The device will be available for a “small monthly fee”, while calls and web browsing via the femtocell will not count against the subscriber’s monthly minutes or data usage.  Interestingly, China Unicom and Apple are also working to make the iPhone support China’s Wi-Fi security standard.  Up until now, the iPhone has not been able to use Wi-Fi in China.

Mobile data ‘congestion pricing’ to boost femtocell market

AT&T’s head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega, told investors at a New York conference that the company will give high-bandwidth mobile data subscribers “incentives to reduce or modify their usage.”  He commented that “some form of usage-based pricing for data is inevitable.”

Although de la Vega later denied that AT&T has any plans to introduce tiered data pricing, pointing instead to greater use of incentives including free Wi-Fi and femtocells, GigaOM believes the introduction of congestion pricing for mobile broadband will happen “sooner than you expect” as the mobile networks strain to cope with demand.  Juniper Research agrees, making an overhaul of mobile data pricing its top prediction for 2010.

Congestion charging looks like a potential win for the femtocell market, making the concept of a personal 3G cell with no data charges increasingly attractive to consumers – assuming that operators don’t charge for data on a home femtocell (in line with China Unicom’s announced policy – see above).  This seems like a reasonable approach, given that femtocells dramatically reduce the cost to the operator of delivering mobile data.

However, it’s likely that improved indoor data coverage from femtocells will lead to further increases in data usage.  De la Vega notes that when AT&T introduced 3G at 850 MHz, it immediately experienced a 30% increase in traffic because the wireless signal could now penetrate buildings more effectively.

Over 50% of US consumers are interested in femtocells

An ABI Research survey has found that, despite a lack of marketing by carriers, over half of US consumers are interested in having a femtocell.  Younger people are especially keen.  “Close to 25% of respondents to our survey were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ interested in using a femtocell,” reports principal analyst Aditya Kaul.  “A further 31% were ’somewhat’ interested.”

Verizon promotes its Network Extender femtocell for Christmas

Verizon Wireless is offering $50 off its Network Extender femtocell this Christmas in an effort to encourage its customers to give “the gift of enhanced coverage”.  Even with the $50 rebate, the device is still much more expensive than AT&T’s 3G MicroCell.  Amongst other benefits, Verizon claims its femtocell is “easy to find” and “easy to wrap”.  (No wonder David Chambers gives the carriers’ attempts at femtocell marketing a “C” in his end of year report card.)

T-Mobile seeks femtocell interoperability with Huawei & Ubiquisys

T-Mobile has signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei and Ubiquisys intended to “pave the way for operators to select standards-based femtocells and femto gateways from multiple vendors” using 3GPP’s Iuh standard.  “These IOT-tests will demonstrate for the first time that femtocell interoperability is becoming a reality,” commented T-Mobile’s Klaus-Jürgen Krath.

The Ubiquisys’ Access Point will be paired with Huawei’s gateway for 6 months of testing.  Interestingly, there is no word on whether Huawei’s AP will be expected to interoperate with the Kineto gateway (the regular partner for Ubiquisys’ AP as part of NEC’s femtocell solution), despite Kineto’s simultaneous announcement of support for Iuh.

Paul Rasmussen at Fierce Wireless questions whether T-Mobile’s announcement undermines the Femto Forum’s upcoming Iuh plugfest, but this is clearly far from the case.  Iuh is still new – the more testing the better.

Ubiquisys announces femto software

Ubiquisys has announced its femtocell Access Point is now available in kit form, with separate Femto-Engine software and an “Engine-Ready” hardware reference design.  The combination is already being used in third party boxes, such as the Sercomm-built G3 mini femto.

Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich suggests that it may be hard to articulate how the solution differs from other “femto reference designs” from the likes of picoChip and Aricent.  In reality, he understands that there’s a world of difference between the raw reference design and a working femtocell, but it might “take some people time to figure that out”.

US TV industry advocates femtocells

“There is no shortage of wireless spectrum in [the US],” says John Hane, counsel for the law firm representing the US TV broadcast industry.  The FCC wants to pinch some unused TV spectrum for mobile broadband, but Hane argues instead that existing spectrum should be used more efficiently with femtocells.

2009 femto reviews and 2010 predictions

Mark Lowenstein, Fierce Wireless: “I see the femto market to be positioned more as a broad-based “network gateway” solution for the office and home, playing a critical role in adjudicating how traffic flows across various networks and devices.”

David Chambers, ThinkFemtocell: 2009 – “While the vendors have managed to continue to maintain a lot of the original hype and buzz around the technology, the various operator launches have generally been remarkably quiet affairs”; 2010 – “Operators [will] more actively promote their femtocell offerings [with] a range of more attractive pricing options.”

Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis: “Ignore the impatient critics expecting overnight adoption [of consumer femtocells]; the momentum is building slowly but steadily.  The need for extra capacity, offload and the ability to use them as services platforms is inexorable.  I’m expecting decent-size deployments in 2010 – although ignore anyone suggesting it’s an alternative to WiFi.”

Ed Hansberry, Information Week: “It seems to me a femtocell is a no brainer for the carriers to push…If AT&T gave a MicroCell…to all iPhone users, it could significantly reduce traffic that has caused AT&T so much bad publicity.”

Award wins

Percello has won Frost & Sullivan’s “2009 European Femtocell Baseband Processor Solutions Technology Innovation of the Year Award”.  Fancy that!  Congratulations also go to KGaA for the “2009 Adhesives for Mobile Electronics Green Excellence of the Year Award”, and Konftel for the “2009 World Audio-conferencing Tabletop Market Growth Leadership Award”.  Hmmm.

In-flight cellphone usage

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has released a discussion paper detailing plans for in-flight mobile phone use, following successful trials of on-board picocells with Qantas.  Meanwhile the Inflight Passenger Communications Coalition has been arguing that the US should catch up with the rest of the world and allow in-flight cellphone usage.

In other femto news…

• Femtocells on the BBC.
• Fourth 3G license award in France “should give birth to a host of discussion about femtocells”.
• Le femtocell, avenir de la convergence fixe-mobile?
• DeadZones forecasts that cable companies will use femtocells to become “formidable competitors in wireless”.
• Josh Adelson notes that operators are beginning to confess their coverage problems.
• Femto Forum to hold press conference at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
• Mike Cronin says Node H is aiming for turnkey femtocells.
• Broadcom stonewalls journalists’ questions regarding its interest in femtocells.
• Airvana goes private (it’s all about the money).
• MicroCell user unsure whether to be concerned about microwave emissions (don’t be).
• Femto fiction!
• RadioFrame auctions its pool table and other assets.
• “LTE Advanced-Femto Cells Middle East-Africa-Asia 2010” – a conference somewhat ahead of its time, perhaps?

In other news altogether…

• TeliaSonera launches world’s first commercial LTE networks in Stockholm and Oslo.
• 37% of UK iPhone owners watch video on their handsets.
• Is T-Mobile US discontinuing HotSpot@Home?
• ABI predicts a billion dollar market for remote radio heads in 2014.

Some nice AT&T 3G MicroCell tweets

• “Whoohoo! I got a 3G MicroCell today and it’s working now!  I get service at home now!!!!!”
• “Got an ATT MicroCell!  Working great and gives me 3G.”
• “The 3G MicroCell rules.  5 bars all over my house!”

Femtocell market update for week of 30 November 2009

Experiments in femtocell marketing

Following SFR’s entertaining promotional video for its new Home 3G femtocell, it’s interesting to see quite a few blogs and articles this week relating to the question of how femtocells should be marketed to consumers.

RCR Wireless recommends that femtocells should be featured in those junk-mail Christmas catalogues which “make a blanket with arm holes in it look like something that I not only can’t live without, but that I need to have it in every color”.  Hmmm.

This political blogger received a more conventional email offer from AT&T.  The message read: “You deserve to get the most out of your voice and data services – wherever you are.  And with the new AT&T 3G MicroCell you’ll get a quality signal with up to 5-bar coverage – right in your home!”  Unfortunately she objected to the $150 price tag and is “not a biter”.

MagicJack has adopted the novel approach of marketing a femtocell offering that doesn’t actually exist (and never will).

Sprint has been giving away its AIRAVE femtocell as a way of retaining customers who have no coverage at home.  Here’s another example this week.  The AIRAVE has had a revamp and now comes in a new form factor.  The box is a bit bigger and now looks like the Verizon Network Extender, bit it still doesn’t have 3G.  Nevertheless, it’s not hard to find happy AIRAVE customers.

Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich has long been an advocate for more creative femtocell marketing, including the introduction of femtozone services.  This week he gives Fierce Wireless further thoughts from his Femtocells Americas conference presentation.  “Marketing is critical to the success of any new service or technology,” he comments.  “In the femtocell space, it is largely absent – particularly when compared against the $100 million budgets for marketing a new mobile device.”

Commenting on SFR’s coverage-based proposition for the Home 3G femtocell, David Chambers asserts that operators should promote femtocells as a premium service that delivers better voice quality and improved data performance compared to the macro network.  “The reality is these femtocells give very high quality voice and very high speed data response,” he says.

On a related note, Vodafone Spain has just introduced tiered pricing for its mobile data packages, offering subscribers the chance to have their traffic prioritised when the network is congested (for an extra €49 per month).  This is the kind of thing analysts have been predicting, as the business model for flat-rate mobile data increasingly fails to support adequate performance on overcrowded networks.  (For example, 3 UK this week said it would suspend sales of 3G dongles in areas where its network performance is not up to standard.)  This is where the concept of “your own personal cell”, offering premium service at home, begins to look attractive.  Femtocells already cost a lot less than €49 per month.

In other news…

• Another happy 3G MicroCell reviewer.
• NetworkWorld says it’s fair that femtocells should use your broadband connection.
• GSMA Technology Director concerned about femto clock sync.  (Why??).
• ThinkFemtocell summarises current commercial femtocell deployments…
• …and offers some thoughts on SFR’s Home 3G launch.
• Explaining WiMAX femtocells.
• NICTA’s Mark Reed explains the InterfereX Project’s Uplink Interference Cancelling technology.
• Rupert Baines gets on his hard hat and goes mining for the femto mother lode.
• Zahid Ghadialy provides some reflections on femtocells.
• NEC claims credit for SFR femto rollout.
• GENBAND supplies Converged Gateway to NEC for SFR.
• IntelliNet and Node H complete interoperability testing.
• Lime Microsystems and picoChip collaborate on femto reference design.
• Another data crunch article.
• Only 54% of US subscribers are happy with their cellphone service.

Experiments in femtocell marketing

Following SFR’s entertaining promotional video for its new Home 3G femtocell, it’s interesting to see quite a few blogs and articles this week relating to the question of how femtocells should be marketed to consumers.

RCR Wireless recommends that femtocells should be featured in those junk-mail Christmas catalogues which “make a blanket with arm holes in it look like something that I not only can’t live without, but that I need to have it in every color”.  Hmmm.

This political blogger received a more conventional email offer from AT&T.  The message read: “You deserve to get the most out of your voice and data services – wherever you are.  And with the new AT&T 3G MicroCell you’ll get a quality signal with up to 5-bar coverage – right in your home!”  Unfortunately she objected to the $150 price tag and is “not a biter”.

MagicJack has adopted the novel approach of marketing a femtocell offering that doesn’t actually exist (and never will).

Sprint has been giving away its AIRAVE femtocell as a way of retaining customers who have no coverage at home.  Here’s another example this week.  The AIRAVE has had a revamp and now comes in a new form factor.  The box is a bit bigger and now looks like the Verizon Network Extender, bit it still doesn’t have 3G.  Nevertheless, it’s not hard to find happy AIRAVE customers.

Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich has long been an advocate for more creative femtocell marketing, including the introduction of femtozone services.  This week he gives Fierce Wireless further thoughts from his Femtocells Americas conference presentation.  “Marketing is critical to the success of any new service or technology,” he comments.  “In the femtocell space, it is largely absent – particularly when compared against the $100 million budgets for marketing a new mobile device.”

Commenting on SFR’s coverage-based proposition for the Home 3G femtocell, David Chambers asserts that operators should promote femtocells as a premium service that delivers better voice quality and improved data performance compared to the macro network.  “The reality is these femtocells give very high quality voice and very high speed data response,” he says.

On a related note, Vodafone Spain has just introduced tiered pricing for its mobile data packages, offering subscribers the chance to have their traffic prioritised when the network is congested (for an extra €49 per month).  This is the kind of thing analysts have been predicting, as the business model for flat-rate mobile data increasingly fails to support adequate performance on overcrowded networks.  (For example, 3 UK this week said it would suspend sales of 3G dongles in areas where its network performance is not up to standard.)  This is where the concept of “your own personal cell”, offering premium service at home, begins to look attractive.  Femtocells already cost a lot less than €49 per month.

In other news…

• Another happy 3G MicroCell reviewer.

· NetworkWorld says it’s fair that femtocells should use your broadband connection.

· GSMA Technology Director concerned about femto clock sync.  (Why??).

· ThinkFemtocell summarises current commercial femtocell deployments…

· …and offers some thoughts on SFR’s Home 3G launch.

· Explaining WiMAX femtocells.

· NICTA’s Mark Reed explains the InterfereX Project’s Uplink Interference Cancelling technology.

· Rupert Baines gets on his hard hat and goes mining for the femto mother lode.

· Zahid Ghadialy provides some reflections on femtocells.

• NEC claims credit for SFR femto rollout.

· GENBAND supplies Converged Gateway to NEC for SFR.

· IntelliNet and Node H complete interoperability testing.

· Lime Microsystems and picoChip collaborate on femto reference design.

· Another data crunch article.

· Only 54% of US subscribers are happy with their cellphone service.

Femtocell market update for week of 23 November 2009

SFR ‘Home 3G’ goes live (website ¦ user guide)

SFR launched its Home 3G femtocell this week.  Like the Vodafone Access Gateway, it’s a standalone femtocell offering improved 3G coverage (but, at least initially, no homezone tariffs or femto services).

Some operators have been reluctant to promote an ‘improved coverage’ proposition (which could be interpreted as an admission of problems with the network).  However, it’s good to see that SFR is making an effort to attract customers for Home 3G; there’s an entertaining video showing how poor 3G coverage can lose a chap his girlfriend (at least if she’s daft enough to stand in the rain sending texts instead of ringing the doorbell).

Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich calls Home 3G “a wonderfully simple proposition”.  He also points out that SFR is marketing the femtocell as much for data as for voice, aiming to “reinforce SFR’s reputation for superior mobile broadband network coverage, both in the wide-area and indoors.”  Jarich believes that indoor service quality may become a key differentiator as network sharing removes differences in outdoor HSPA coverage, and speculates that Orange France may be forced to rethink its preference for UMA over femtocells for the consumer market (see also rumours here).

Consumer reaction has been limited so far, but according to one comment the €199 price may be considered a bit steep: “La technologie est intéressante mais le prix l’est moins” (The technology is interesting, but the price is less so).

In what Rethink Wireless calls a “reversal of national loyalties”, SFR’s femtocell is based on British femto technology from Ubiquisys, supplied by NEC, whereas the Vodafone UK solution hails from partly French owned Alcatel-Lucent.  In an interview with Mobile Europe, Ubiquisys CTO Will Franks claims an advantage over the Alcatel Lucent system: “The radio technology has to be very good…Operators such as Vodafone UK which had a free carrier can use something less sophisticated, but operators on shared carriers…need something that will not give them interference in the macro network.”

My French is a bit rusty, but I found are a few interesting snippets on the SFR website FAQ:

• The service works with any Internet connection, and doesn’t require SFR’s NeufBox residential gateway.
• The signal range is advertised as 15m (providing a coverage area of over 7,500 sq ft).
• When in femtocell coverage, SFR phones display “SFR Home 3G” (or on some phones “20811″ or “F11″).
• The access control list can hold up to four numbers in addition to the subscriber’s own.  (SFR charges subscribers between €2 and €4 for changing numbers on the access control list after the first month!  Changes take 48 hours to come into effect, which implies that the system is not yet automated.)
• Home 3G is not compatible with fibre-optic broadband Internet services.
• The installation video indicates that the femtocell should be placed at least 1.5 metres from the NeufBox.  (Vodafone UK recommends a 6 ft separation between its femtocell and a WiFi router, as a precaution against poor frequency filters in the WiFi unit.)
• Strangely, the SFR website lists seven 3G handsets that are incompatible with the Home 3G femtocell.  (Fortunately the flagship iPhone 3GS is not one of these.)

The Taiwanese are coming

According to DIGITIMES, “nearly all major Taiwan-based network equipment makers have ventured into the production of indoor-use femtocells”.  The publication suggests that this could result in femtocell price reductions to the magic figure of $100 per unit in the second half of 2010.  Gemtek chairman Howard Chen says he expects femtocells to be one of the “major items” his company ships to carriers in 2010.

Femtocells “not dead yet”

Despite having “pretty much decided that the femto market is dead”, GigaOM acknowledges that other analysts disagree.  Stacey Higginbotham cites a Deutsche Bank report concluding that all carriers will have to use femtocells in order to keep up with the demand for mobile broadband.  But Stacey believes carriers are “going to have to improve their networks in a way that doesn’t pass on the femtocell cost to consumers”.

Engadget asks “How Would You Change AT&T’s 3G MicroCell?”

The most popular answers are (1) roll it out nationwide, and (2) make it free (or less than about $50, anyway).

More from SpiderCloud

Despite insisting that its E-RAN is not a femtocell, SpiderCloud says it can connect to the operator’s standard 3G core network using the Iuh standard.  But some aspects of the system do sound very different from the femtocell approach; for example, in an interview with ThinkFemtocell, SpiderCloud’s VP Marketing Ronny Haraldsvik explains that the E-RAN requires “considerable co-ordination and configuration of the macrocell network” (for example to achieve hand-in).

ABI redresses the balance

ABI Research has hit back at the sensationalist reporting of its recently revised femtocell forecasts, saying that its predictions were “taken out of context, conveniently leaving out the part where we said we still believe in this market”.  Aditya Kaul’s blog posting discusses a number of recent positive femtocell announcements, and concludes that the femto market is “just beginning to take shape”.

In other news…

• NSN and China Mobile show TD-LTE femto demo.
• Too much femto jargon?  Yes!
• Video of Percello / Node H demo of 16 simultaneous calls on PRC 6500 chip.
• Pete Claydon to leave picoChip.
• Here’s a happy VAG user.
• NICTA and Rohde & Schwarz Demonstrate Interference-cancellation.
• Revenues from in-flight WiFi slow to take off.
• Survey: would you pay for better cell voice/data coverage at home?
• STM announces SuperPico (looks more like a small macro) for small GSM operators

Femtocell market update for week of 16 November 2009

SFR to launch ‘Home 3G’ femtocell

Adverts for SFR’s Home 3G femtocell have appeared on the Internet.  It’s a standalone femtocell that will work with any ISP.  The price is ­­free with a 24-month contract, €5 per month for 12-month commitment or €199 to buy the box outright.  Like the Vodafone Access Gateway, Home 3G is positioned as an indoor coverage solution.  The solution has been developed by NEC with femtocell technology from Ubiquisys and Kineto.  Here are some articles in French.

AT&T shows 3G MicroCell in San Diego

AT&T made its 3G MicroCell available in San Diego just in time for the Femtocells Americas conference.  The MicroCell was on display at the ip.access stand, where AT&T subscribers attending the conference were able to use the femtocell for calls and mobile data services after adding their phone numbers to the access control list via a simple web interface.

Vendors collaborate on femto services

ip.access, Airvana and Ubiquisys have demonstrated Intrinsyc’s UX-Zone™ femtocell-aware phone application working with all three vendors’ femtocells.  UX-Zone incorporates femtocell presence triggers to change the user interface on a smartphone automatically as soon as it detects a femtocell.  Working within the Femto Forum’s Services SIG, ip.access, Airvana and Ubiquisys have implemented the presence triggers in a standardised way.

The Register claims that the best use for UX-Zone would be to indicate cheaper call rates on the femtocell, but that the companies involved in the demo won’t admit this for fear of “upsetting the network operators who see no reason to discount services just because they’re being carried on the customer’s infrastructure”.  This is a rather cynical view.  Some operators (Sprint and AT&T, for instance) do offer discounted calls on their femtocells, and they already have ways to indicate that the phone is in the femtozone.

The true significance of the demo – progress towards standardisation of femto service APIs – was recognised by other commentators, including Information Week and Rethink Wireless.  Presenting at the Femtocells Americas conference in San Diego this week, NTT DoCoMo and other mobile operators emphasised the importance of new services enabled by femtocells.  After the conference, the Femto Forum invited application developers to a breakfast briefing on femto services, which appears to have inspired at least one commentator.

Femto Forum publishes market commentary

The Femto Forum has published a new report on the state of the femtocell market, highlighting 8 commercial deployments worldwide.  The report also provides information about the ecosystem of femtocell technology suppliers, and an update on standards and regulatory developments.

Mobile data increases 20-fold in a year on O2 UK network

Announcing a £100 million network upgrade, O2 CTO Derek McManus said that “world-class smartphones” were to blame for a 20-fold increase in the operator’s mobile data traffic in the last 12 months.  “Watching a YouTube video on a smartphone can use the same capacity on the network as sending 500,000 text messages simultaneously,” he said.

picoChip raises another $20m

picoChip’s investors have put another $20 million into the company, showing confidence that the femtocell market is set for take-off.  At the same time, picoChip is aiming to expand its product offering to include a more complete femtocell reference design, including automated interference management, network self organization and even a TR-069 management module.

According to Caroline Gabriel at Rethink Wireless, picoChip has been through the hype cycle and is coming out the other side, with femtocells “set for significant adoption in 2010 and a true mass market in 2011-2012”.  She notes that this progress is “lightning fast compared to most new technologies”.

Arcadyan to develop femtocells for Far EasTone

Network equipment maker Arcadyan Technology is developing femtocells with mobile operator Far EasTone Telecommunications.  The two Taiwanese companies are receiving government financial support for the project.

Samsung to launch 3G UbiCell

Samsung has announced a 3G upgrade to its CDMA femtocell.  Available in 2010, the 3G UbiCell will support EV-DO Rev A and 1xRTT in simultaneous operation at 800 & 1900 MHz.  Engadget believes that Verizon is the lead customer.

Ubiquisys announces ‘wide area femtocell’

Ubiquisys has introduced what it calls a “wide area femtocell” for rural deployments.  The 16-user device has vastly higher power (20-30 W) and much longer range (1.5 km) compared to a conventional femtocell, but according to Ubiquisys it retains the key advantage of being deployed without any cell planning.  The wide area femtocell was developed for SoftBank Mobile in Japan.

Correction: the transmit power is at a typical femtocell level of 10 mW.

RadioFrame assets sold

Motorola has bought RadioFrame Networks’ iDEN basestation business.  More interestingly, Unstrung reports that the company’s femtocell assets have also been sold to a mystery buyer, and speculates that this might be chip-maker Broadcom.

In other news…

• Are femtocells dead on arrival?  Hardly!
• Carl Weinschenk comments on ABI forecast reduction.
• David Chambers asks what defines a commercial femtocell launch.
• Zarlink announces IEEE1588 and NTP femto timing solution.
• Brillant also announces femto timing solution for Alcatel-Lucent.
• Femtocells are good news for fixed broadband in Digital Britain.
• Peter Jarich’s slides from the Femtocells Americas conference.
• Return of the femtocell.

Femtocell market update for week of 9 November 2009

NTT DoCoMo launches MyArea femtocell

Following through on an initial announcement last July, NTT DoCoMo has launched its MyArea HSUPA-capable femtocell in Japan.  According to DoCoMo, the femtocell “creates a private FOMA area in the home as a highly stable wireless environment for high-speed packet communication”.  Pricing is only $5 per month with no sign-up fee (although this will increase to $22 sign-up + $10 per month next June – further details here).  It appears that DoCoMo is carrying out installations of the femtocell for its customers.

Of particular interest is the operator’s emphasis on services.  For example, the MyArea femtocell uses presence detection to inform parents when their children arrive at home.  It also offers exclusive music and video content for MyArea subscribers in the femtozone.

Comcast testing WiMAX femtocells

According to Fierce Wireless, Comcast is conducting trials of WiMAX femtocells.  Although femtocells are “slowly worming their way into the heart of the U.S. wireless industry,” a commercial WiMAX femtocell deployment by the nation’s largest cable provider probably won’t happen until next year.

ABI reduces 2009 femtocell forecast

ABI Research caused a stir by reducing its 2009 femtocell shipment forecast by 55% from 790,000 to 350,000 units.  According to practice director Aditya Kaul, “operators haven’t pushed femtocells as much or as soon as expected”.  The news sparked sensationalist headlines, such as “Femtocells struggle to catch on” and “Femtocells are a no show”.

But despite what Wireless Week calls a “drastic lowering” of ABI’s femtocell estimates, the reality is that the research firm’s forecast has changed very little over the medium term.  Commenting on Think Femtocell, Kaul is keen to point out that his views of the femtocell market have been mis-represented by the dramatic headlines, and that he remains positive about the market’s potential.  Meanwhile, the ABI Twitter feed highlights that recent femtocell announcements in China, Japan and India are positive for the market.

Vodafone promotes its femtocell

As Verizon and AT&T wage a war of words (and TV adverts) over who has the best 3G network in the US, Vodafone in the UK is claiming that the iPhone 3Gs will work much faster on its network than those of its rivals.  Vodafone also points out that its Access Gateway femtocell turbo-charges 3G performance at home – something What Mobile believes could be a significant advantage over the UK’s other iPhone operators, O2 and Orange.

Meanwhile, Vodafone reseller Next Communications is offering £30 off the price of the Vodafone Access Gateway for its small and medium sized business customers.

KPN and OnePhone target German SMEs with femtocells

A joint venture between KPN and OnePhone will use femtocells [actually picocells] to target German businesses with between 30 and 1,500 employees.  OnePhone (under the Spring Mobil brand) already uses picocells in Sweden to deploy its network in business premises, enabling its customers to save money by getting rid of their fixed line phones.  In Germany, the company’s phones will roam onto KPN’s E-Plus network when outdoors.

Airvana announces enterprise femtocell

Airvana has announced the HubBub UMTS High-Capacity Femtocell.  Shipping sometime next year, the device will support 16 simultaneous voice calls with a range of up to 600 meters and data throughput of 21.6 Mbps download (5.7 Mbps upload).

Commenting in a market research update, Current Analysis’ Peter Jarich says enterprise femtocells are “more important than ever”.

In other news…

• Another good 3G MicroCell review.
• ThinkFemtocell advocates easy self-management of femto access control lists.
• Fierce Wireless encourages operators to focus on femto services and enterprise deployments.
• AirWalk wins CDG Innovation in Wireless Enterprise Solutions Development Award.
• Airvana also wins CDG award for CDMA femtocell with integrated analogue telephone adaptor and router.
• Airvana dismisses the “femto grid” concept (no argument there).
• HTC builds phone with MiFi embedded.
• US data market update.
• NICTA demonstrates new interference-cancellation modem for 3G femtocell networks.

 

Femtocell market update for week of 2 November 2009

The magic of the MicroCell (and WiFi)

Telephony Online’s Kevin Fitchard believes that AT&T’s 3G MicroCell could become “another pillar in AT&T’s dual-network strategy” – WiFi and cellular, that is.  AT&T has become increasingly reliant on WiFi to offload mobile data traffic from its 3G network, with iPhones now connecting to WiFi automatically in AT&T hotspots, causing a 66% leap in the number of hotspot connections.

John Stankey, president and CEO of AT&T Operations, explained this in his keynote speech at SUPERCOMM: “We’re…focusing on how we make WiFi and licensed spectrum a more seamless experience for customers…You’re going to see micro and macro in terms of licensed and unlicensed spectrum.  This is a key architecture element we’re all going to have to come to grips with.”

Telephony Online points to an earlier interview with Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility, suggesting that the 3G MicroCell is also set to become part of this offload strategy.  “It’s not going to be one thing; it will be a combination of things: taking fiber closer to the home, Wi-Fi and femtocells.  A combination of all of those is going to help us manage bandwidth and provide a great experience to our customers no matter where they connect,” says de la Vega.

So is it WiFi for hotspots and femtocells for the home?  There would be some logic to this approach from AT&T’s perspective.  It’s one thing for a carrier to offload mobile data traffic onto its own managed WiFi network, but quite another to encourage its customers to switch to their own private WiFi networks at home, where the carrier retains no involvement whatsoever.

Alternatively, will WiFi take on femtocells and win?

Picking up on the WiFi / femto theme, Stacey Higginbottom at GigaOm asks “who needs femtocells if we have WiFi?”  According to Stacey we’ve seen WiFi take on femtocells in the enterprise and win (when did that happen?), so as Wi-Fi gets embedded in more and more phones femtocells will become unnecessary.  But most observers are now seeing WiFi and femtocells as complementary.  For example, Senza Fili’s Monica Paolini expresses this more balanced view on the Cisco Community site.

3G MicroCell gets 9.5 out of 10 Stammys!

Renowned tech blogger Paul Stamatiou gave the AT&T 3G MicroCell a review this week.  He had some problems getting a GPS location fix, which meant that activation took a long time, but apart from this the review is very positive:

• “5 bars in every room and no degradation of call quality while moving about”
• “Call quality is as good as I have ever heard from an iPhone 3GS”
• “I have not experienced any degradation of call quality, even when I was soaking up tons of my bandwidth”
• “I gladly paid for the MicroCell out of my own wallet, which allowed me to dump my $26/month Vonage VoIP setup and not have to deal with having two phone numbers.”
• “Setup was a huge pain, but I can forget about that for the great service and call quality it provides.”

Overall, the AT&T 3G MicroCell was awarded 9.5 out of 10 Stammys.

Also this week, The Apple Blog updated its MicroCell review and reported some teething problems with service outages (attributed to firmware updates).  It seems that the problems are now fixed, except that calls to India are not the highest quality (which might not necessarily be the MicroCell’s fault).

More on China Unicom’s 3G Inn femtocell

ABI’s Aditya Kaul suggests that China Unicom is “looking at a massive [femtocell] rollout”, ramping up towards end of next year.  He believes it’s not a coincidence that the operator’s ‘3G Inn’ femtocell announcement has coincided with the (WiFi-less) Chinese iPhone launch, and points out that, unlike the AT&T 3G MicroCell and the Vodafone Access Gateway, it will be harder to track the 3G Inn’s progress via the blogs and Twitter due to the great Chinese firewall!

Vodafone Access Gateway & WiFi

Last week we heard about problems with Total Telecom’s trial of the Vodafone Access Gateway interfering with WiFi.  This week the problem is resolved, but only at the cost of moving the WiFi Access Point and the femtocell 6 feet apart.  It seems the trouble was probably caused by a poor quality spectrum filter in the WiFi unit.  (Fortunately this is not a complicated thing to get right, so those anticipated integrated femto / WiFi home gateways will not need to be 6 feet wide.)

SpiderCloud ‘not a femtocell’

The Register says SpiderCloud Wireless is stressing that its new E-RAN offering is not a femtocell play.  Apparently this is because the E-RAN is fully integrated with the network and can therefore support two-way handover.  If this is indeed SpiderCloud’s claim, they may be surprised to discover that femtocells are also fully integrated with the network and can support two-way handover (although not yet in a standardised way).

Meanwhile, Peter Jarich questions the viability of an offering that relies on wireless carriers as a channel into large enterprises, and Unstrung regrets that the company has nothing to do with Spiderpig.

Wireless Week sceptical about femtocells

Probably as a result of too much hype in the early days, there’s now a common misconception that femtocells have been around for ages and that that consumer adoption has been disappointing.  For example, Wireless Week comments: “femtocells…have simply failed to thrive.”  But the reality is that femtocells are still a new technology.  Operators are only just beginning to deploy femtocells commercially and have not yet started actively marketing them.

In other news…

• Finding the right small-cell architecture for 4G.
• Imagine if every femtocell came equipped with a 1 TB hard drive…
• How femtocell billing works.
• Femtocells and iPhone Moms (er, Mums).
• Carriers must not overlook the importance of successfully marketing femtocells.
• 3 UK says data now represents 94% of its network traffic.
• Dual mode is ‘in’, but Nokia loses ground in the WiFi handset market.
• Smartphones to overtake feature phones by 2012.
• MiFi sales disappointing.
• Interview with Dave Gross of GWT and Shlomo Gadot of Percello.
• Tatara selects CCPU.
• SafeNet explains femto security.
• Oops, lost one…

Femtocell market update for week of 26 October 2009

China Unicom launches “3G Inn” femtocell

According to an announcement in Chinese (translation here), China Unicom has launched a commercial 3G femtocell service targeted at “high end” consumers.  The so-called “3G Inn” service requires a 2 Mbps residential broadband connection, and is available for a monthly fee.  With a mere 140 million subscribers, China Unicom is a long way behind market leader China Mobile (which uses the home-grown TDS-CDMA standard for its own 3G network).  But China Unicom may gain a competitive advantage from its femtocell deployment, especially as WiFi is not supported on Chinese smartphones (including the iPhone).  Think Femtocell provides further thoughts on the launch here, and on the recent China Femtocell Symposium here.

Indoor coverage problems affect UK workers

The problem of delivering mobile voice coverage and data capacity in office buildings is getting worse, making a very powerful argument for picocells (or enterprise femtocells, as some prefer to call them).

A new survey from ADC has found that poor mobile phone coverage is negatively affecting work for more than a quarter of UK employees.  The survey found that over 60% of people rely on their mobile phone for their job, but almost two thirds of these complain of a less than perfect mobile phone signal in their workplace, and almost 28% say their work has suffered as a result.  In addition to lifts, stairwells and conference rooms, almost a quarter of respondents said they have coverage problems at their own desks.

And the problem is going to get worse as mobile data becomes increasingly important to business users.  According to figures recently published by Informa, mobile enterprise revenues are set to grow significantly, and will account for almost a quarter of total mobile data service revenues by 2014.

AT&T MicroCell rocks!

Here’s an interesting concept – “in-home mobility”.  One blogger describes his friend’s experience at home before acquiring AT&T’s 3G MicroCell: “If you stood perfectly still in the master bedroom you could reliably connect a call but isn’t mobility the point of having a cell phone?”  The 3G MicroCell solved the problem so well that the blogger was moved to comment, “In short, the microcell rocks!”

Vodafone Access Gateway recognised by The Independent

The Vodafone Access Gateway has made it into The Independent’s list of the 50 Best Gadgets.  Unfortunately, this UK newspaper’s record on science and technology is pretty dire (this is the paper that started the ridiculous rumour that mobile phones are killing bees), but it’s still interesting that the Vodafone femtocell has caught mainstream media attention despite very little publicity to date.

Meanwhile, Total Telecom’s trial of the Vodafone Access Gateway has hit a problem (a “VAG snag”, so to speak).  Apparently the home WiFi connection doesn’t work properly when the VAG is switched on, and Total Telecom suspects interference.  This sounds unlikely (I’ve never seen a similar complaint from any other femtocell user), but something strange is clearly going on there.

SpiderCloud Wireless launches Enterprise RAN

SpicerCloud Wireless has finally come out of stealth mode to launch its Enterprise Radio Access Network product.  The system is aimed at giving mobile operators a tool for providing in-building mobile coverage in enterprises, and consists of a central hub controlling a number of remote radio heads.  Oddly, the company seems to think that this will be differentiated by providing coverage for smaller areas than picocells, when in fact the system looks designed to compete with larger systems such as DAS.  It’s also not clear whether the E-RAN can provide multi-operator support – normally a primary requirement for large in-building deployments – although the ‘enterprise benefits’ page on the website suggests perhaps not.  “Soon you can outsource ‘Anything Wireless’ to the Mobile Operator”, says the headline.  Well, that might be ok for a smaller business (where a picocell would work pretty well), but I doubt it’s a message that will appeal to the IT manager at a larger enterprise.

Mobile data jam hits the headlines

Industry insiders have been discussing the coming mobile data capacity crunch for a long time already.  Mark Heath’s guest posting on Think Femtocell this week makes it clear that LTE will not solve the problem, and WiFi and femtocells are often discussed as options for mobile operators to offload data traffic.  Mark Lowenstein’s article on Fierce Wireless this week reflects this view: “femtocells, rather than being a customer-centric solution for indoor coverage, represent more of an operator-centric solution for effective network management in buildings, leveraging the broadband network,” says Lowenstein.

Now the mobile data crunch is beginning to enter the mainstream consciousness.  This week the BBC reported that mobile data traffic will increase 25 times by 2012, while corresponding revenues will only double.  “The consumption rate is far outweighing the network improvement rate,” says Bytemobile’s Graham Carey, “…there’s a crunch point coming.”  The Beeb also quotes ADC vice president John Spindler: “Today the primary use for wireless is happening indoors…What’s going to happen if carriers do not respond appropriately?  They are going to crush the user experience.”

WiFi Direct vs Bluetooth – but will femtocells beat them both?

Nick Hunn notes the press interest in the battle between Bluetooth and the new WiFi Direct standard (aimed at making it easy to connect devices directly to one another).  However, he believes there is “another stalking technology” which could make direct connections between mobile devices redundant.  “If femtocells take off and users get used to using the network itself for transferring data between devices,” says Hunn, “then ad-hoc transfers may lose out altogether.”

Airvana says the femtocell’s time has come

According to Airvana CEO Randy Battat, “The femtocell’s time has come.”  In a press announcement of the company’s 3Q09 financial results, Battat says “We have been awarded several commercial deployments around the world with contracts in place and purchase commitments for significant volumes in 2010 and beyond.  Both our CDMA and UMTS femtocell products are in the final stages of software development and testing, with commercial production starting late this quarter and ramping in the first quarter of 2010.  We expect operator launches with Airvana products, especially in North America and Asia, starting in the first half of 2010.”

In other news…

• picoChip launches “Class 3” femtocell reference design with 2 km range – The Femto Forum defines 3 femtocell categories: Class 1 (typically residential), Class 2 (primarily indoor for enterprise) and Class 3 (for rural, metro and wider area deployment).
• Ubiquisys and Intrinsyc show demo at Symbian show.
• EU urges member countries to assign 790-862 MHz spectrum for mobile broadband.
• “Many of the reactions to proposed cell phone sites are based on misunderstandings about health issues”.

Femtocell market update for week of 19 October 2009

FCC’s net neutrality rules could help femtocells

On Thursday the FCC approved six rules for wired and wireless broadband Internet connections, but left the details of the rules open to public debate for the next 60 days.  One of the rules states that “subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a non-discriminatory manner.”

As well as preventing a broadband provider from blocking Skype because it competes with its own VoIP service, this also means that Verizon and AT&T cannot block each other’s femtocell traffic on their fixed line networks.  Neither can they block Sprint’s femto traffic.

In practice, femtocell traffic is not being blocked on US broadband networks today (and there would be very little justification for an ISP to shape or throttle femto traffic for network management purposes).  However, some analysts continue to raise concerns that traffic blocking could potentially damage the femtocell market, and the new rules, when ratified, should finally put these concerns to bed – at least in the US.

One controversial aspect of the new net neutrality rules is that they extend to wireless networks as well as fixed.  CTIA has hinted at legal action, saying the rules “degrade the value” of the public spectrum carriers have licensed.  Further details of the impact of net neutrality for wireless can be found here.

MTNL wants 3G femtocells

India’s state-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd is seeking bids for the deployment of 3G femtocells in Delhi and Mumbai.  A pilot project is expected to be up and running within 3 months.  According to MTNL, the aim is to “develop world class telecom facilities for its esteemed subscribers and efficient utilization of spectrum which is a precious scare [sic] national resource”.

3G MicroCell selected as Light Reading ‘Top Pick’

Light Reading has selected AT&T’s 3G MicroCell as one of its Wireless Infrastructure Top Picks.  According to Dan Jones, the Cisco-branded box is “an important proof point in the evolving femtocell industry” which could be important for AT&T in helping the company to “ease recent network congestion issues”.

The other Wireless Infrastructure Top Picks were Ericsson’s RBS 6000 software basestation and Vihaan Networks’ WorldGSM solar powered basestation.

eBooks and femtocells

Some time ago, ThinkFemtocell proposed that femtocells could improve the user experience for eBooks in the home.  With this in mind, I was interested to see a discussion amongst users of Amazon’s Kindle eBook.  Some users were having trouble downloading books over the AIRAVE’s CDMA 1x connection, and Amazon eventually confirmed that “EV-DO is necessary for a good web experience on the Kindle”.  So it seems that 3G femtocells are needed in order for ThinkFemtocell’s vision to be realised.  This might give Barnes & Noble an advantage with its own ereader, the “Nook”.  Wireless connectivity for the Nook is provided by AT&T, which has already launched a 3G femtocell.

Light Reading reviews the Vodafone Access Gateway

Gabriel Brown summarises his experiences after a few months of using the VAG, concluding that “the technology works, is exceedingly simple to use, and has the potential to deliver advanced services and applications”.  One particularly impressive feature is that the femtocell provides much greater coverage than WiFi, despite the “tiny amount of power the device puts out”.  Gabriel notes that the industry should now feel confident to “move forward on developing advanced, high-value [femto] services”.

Total Telecom is also trialling the VAG, and “so far, it’s great”.  But what they really want is an “all-singing, all-dancing router with WiFi, cellular, and home networking support” (some people are never satisfied J).

In other news…

• Node H demonstrates 16 simultaneous calls on Percello PRC6500 femto SoC.
• AIRCOM International explains why femtocells are important (part 3).
• Another user review of the Sprint AIRAVE.
• Femtocells are just an extension of cable companies’ long association with wireless backhaul.
• Femtocell panel planned for Fierce Wireless’ 4G Reality Check online conference.
• ThinkFemtocell interview with Ubiquisys’ Keith Day.
• Survey finds consumers are impatient for faster mobile Internet.
• And another survey finds the same thing.
• Stoke clings to dream of seamless WiFi-to-cellular roaming.

Femtocell market update for week of 12 October 2009

Mobilkom Austria gives mixed messages on femtocells

Mobilkom has announced that it wants to deploy femtocells commercially in Austria next year (and possibly in other European mobile subsidiaries of parent company Telekom Austria).  However, the company’s top management provides little encouragement for vendors to respond enthusiastically to its RFP.  Mobilkom CTO Johann Pichler told Unstrung he believes that femtocells are good for improving indoor coverage in “specific cases, but not generally,” and that the price of a femtocell needs to be “in the range of a WiFi router”.  According to Total Telecom, Pichler is also sceptical about using femtocells to offload data traffic from the macro network, apparently contradicting conventional wisdom by suggesting that the problem will be solved by LTE.

Femto Forum announces Iu-h plugfest

The Femto Forum has announced the ‘1st Femto Forum UMTS Femtocell Plugfest’ which will take place in March next year at ETSI’s facilities in the South of France.  There is widespread vendor support for the initiative, which aims to validate 3GPP’s Iu-h femtocell standard.

Current Analysis Research Director Peter Jarich commented, “a standard is meaningless until vendors and operators alike know that products are actually conforming to it, making interoperability testing a critical component of the femtocell market’s success.” But ABI’s Aditya Kaul believes that interoperability is a secondary consideration for operators, and that they are still more concerned with developing the business case.

Kevin Fitchard at Telephony Online looks forward to a time when femtocells are “standardized to a point customers can practically buy them off the shelf at a Best Buy or Radio Shack and expect them to work” (but his conjecture that femtocells are “a very European affair” is a rather strange one).

More 3G MicroCell news

Matt Ellenberger’s unboxing video for the 3G MicroCell shows how simple it is to set up and start using the device.  He seems like a happy customer.  Elsewhere, Mobiquizoid published a picture of the advert he received in the mail for AT&T’s femtocell in Atlanta.  The pricing is subtly different from Charlotte, where the free calling plan costs $20.  In Atlanta AT&T is trying two options – $15 for an individual free calling plan or $30 for a family plan.

Infonetics updates its FMC report

Infonetics Research has updated its FMC and Femtocell Equipment, Phones, and Subscribers report, finding “no evidence of the economic downturn having a major impact on the pace of FMC rollouts”.  The research firm expects a dozen major operators to launch femtocell services in 2010, giving the market “a kick-start”.

Sales of FMC network element equipment and femtocell equipment are forecast to grow to $7.4 billion worldwide by 2013, slightly down on the $8 billion forecast in the original version of the report back in March.  The number of femtocells sold is expected to increase five-fold from 2009 to 2010.

Smartphones are the real network hogs

Airvana has found that a typical smartphone generates eight times the network signalling load per MB of data transferred compared to a 3G connected laptop.  This “load multiplier effect” is caused by the fact that smartphones are always on, moving between cell sites and continually querying the network.  With iSuppli forecasting smartphone shipments to grow from nearly 200 million in 2009 to 450 million in 2013, this looks like a problem that’s going to get much worse.  Mobile Europe and Rethink Wireless both spoke to Airvana’s Dave Nowicki, who suggested that offloading smartphone data traffic onto femtocells will help operators stay in control.

How to make femtocells faster than WiFi

Dean Bubley says a mobile operator could strike a deal with a broadband provider to “over-provision” capacity to its femtocell gateway, thereby releasing a constraint on the backhaul – but only for femtocell traffic.  Dean suggests that “everybody wins” in this scenario.  The user gets a blazing-fast femto connection, the mobile operator offloads more traffic and has a happier customer, and the broadband provider gets extra revenue for doing very little.

Picocells & femtocells can solve the spectrum crisis

Carl Weinschenk ponders the “looming spectrum crisis” discussed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at last week’s CTIA conference, and concludes that the cellular industry will not live up to expectations unless it meets the challenge of spectrum scarcity.  “The smart money says that picocells and femtocells are the best bets for keeping the problem under control,” says Weinschenk.

Other news

• Total Telecom says momentum in the femtocell market is picking up.
• ComputerWorld: “if seamlessness matters, look for femtocells to really take off”.
• AIRCOM International explains why femtocells are important (part 2).
• Mark Hay ploughs a lone furrow with 2G femtocells.
• Will Franks expands on location validation for femtocells.
• Manish Singh tries to convince Telecom TV femto-sceptic Ian Scales.
• GigaOM says femtocells won’t last long – but you have to pay if you want to know why (don’t think I’ll bother).
• David Chambers considers WiFi and femtocell as options for traffic offload.