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.

Femtocell market update for week of 5 October 2009

AT&T expands 3G MicroCell availability

According to AT&T’s website, the 3G MicroCell is now available in Atlanta (29 stores) and Columbia (3 stores).  This follows last week’s launch in Raleigh (11 stores) and the original market of Charlotte NC (19 stores), making 62 stores in total.  One delighted customer commented, “Holy crap – AT&T 3g Microcell totally RULES.  5 bars in my house – I was lucky to have 1 before!”

It looks like AT&T has done very little so far by way of promotion.  Jason Nash (who provided one of the first and most comprehensive blog reviews of the device) hasn’t seen a single ad for the Microcell.  “Only reason I know is I saw it on MacRumors,” he comments on Twitter.  I did find one person who had received some promotional materials – (unfortunately not in an area where the MicroCell is available – oops!).

Meanwhile, AT&T came under further pressure this week over its 3G network coverage and performance.  (Verizon launched an aggressive ad campaign claiming superior 3G network coverage, playing on the “There’s an app for that” iPhone ad campaign with its own “There’s a map for that” ad.)  Speaking at the CTIA IT & Entertainment conference, AT&T CTO John Donovan highlighted AT&T’s substantial ongoing investments in upgrading its 3G network, and pointed out that AT&T has had to content with 5000% growth in data traffic over the last 3 years.

In an interview following his speech, Donovan also gave further details of how the 3G MicroCell plays in AT&T’s overall network strategy.  He said that AT&T will make the femtocell available to all its subscribers, and called it “one piece of the carrier’s overall network infrastructure.”  He also said that AT&T will “emphasize the technology more in certain markets where it will make a bigger difference in the user experience, such as areas where the carrier is still using 1900MHz.”

Senior industry figures advocate femtocells

In a keynote speech at the CTIA conference, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski warned the wireless industry that there isn’t enough spectrum to meet the future demands of mobile users.  He cited femtocells as part of the solution.

In another CTIA talk, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs also put his weight behind femtocells as the answer to continued network performance enhancements.  “That’s how we’re going to get these big increases,” said Jacobs.  ”We think we can get 8 to 10 times improvement in user experience by building up a dense network and managing the interference between the macro network and these femto networks.”

UK mobile coverage problems revealed

New research has found that a third of UK consumers and small businesses regularly experience mobile coverage problems.  “Large numbers of consumers and small businesses are still having problems making even basic voice calls,” said Anna Bradley, chairwoman of the Communications Consumer Panel which advises Ofcom.  The Panel is urging a ‘try before you buy’ system, with consumers being given time to check their coverage at home and work before being locked into a mobile phone contract.

Picocells are perfect for India

According to ip.access VP Mark Pittick, 2G picocells are the most cost-effective way for Indian mobile operators to solve network capacity and coverage problems caused by rapid subscriber growth.  In an interview with Indian publication Voice and Data, Mr Pittick said that operators in India today are looking to provide 2G picocells for business customers.  “There is an immediate business case, not to say urgent need, for this type of solution,” he said.

T-Mobile USA expands its UMA service to business customers

T-Mobile’s new ‘Wi-Fi Calling with MobileOffice’ service allows business customers to make free calls over WiFi in the office (as long as they have a UMA enabled BlackBerry phone).  The service relies on BlackBerry’s MVS system to integrate with the office PBX, giving users a single number for their mobile and desk phones while in the office.  But with no fixed line assets to protect, T-Mobile is also positioning its dual mode service as a way for businesses to save money by getting rid their desk phones altogether.

Femtocells to be distributed free in smart meters (well, maybe)

According to Mobile Exec magazine, UK homes could get free or subsidised femtocells as a result of a government drive that will see smart meters fitted in every household and business across England and Wales from 2016.  Mobile Exec speculates that smart meters equipped with GSM communications could include femtocells to ensure a good mobile connection for feeding back meter readings to the energy company.  Unfortunately this logic may be flawed.  As explained by Personal Computer World: “One possibility would be to have a WiFi gateway talking wirelessly to the meter.  But this presents the problem of what to do about homes with no broadband”.  It seems the idea is to use a femtocell instead, under the misapprehension that the femtocell can work without a broadband connection.  Oh well, never mind.

DoCoMo femtocell on display at ITU

I went to the ITU show in Geneva for the day on Wednesday.  Robert Mugabe was there, but it has to be said that there wasn’t much else of note happening.  The show was a shadow of its former self, but I did find one femtocell on display on the DoCoMo stand.  According to the stand rep, DoCoMo is still on track to launch its HSPA femtocell this year.

In other news…

• Sprint includes AIRAVE femtocell in turnkey back-office solution for MVNOs.
• The Register provides a belated review of the Vodafone Access Gateway (generally positive, although they expected hand-in to work – obviously didn’t read the FAQ).
• Vodafone Access Gateway tear-down report now available.
• Hay Systems’ Mark Hay says “[femtocell] success is coming but not in the timescale that most femtocell vendors were hoping for.”
• Huawei says operators could promote femtocells as environmentally friendly.
• New IDC report asks “Picocell-Enabled Enterprise Services in Western Europe: Dead in the Water?”  (At $640 for 4 pages I guess it needs a sensationalist title).
• AIRCOM International explains why femtocells are important.
• Ubiquisys shows femto apps on a feature phone without WiFi.
• Airvana explains why location locking for femtocells is necessary.
• On-Waves expands market for (ip.access) picocells on ships.
• David Chambers and Doug Knisely shed light on IMS standards for femtocells.
• Zahid Ghadialy explains femtocell standards in 3GPP.

Femtocell market update for week of 28 September 2009

Engadget reviews AT&T’s 3G Microcell

AT&T expanded the rollout of its 3G Microcell to Raleigh in North Carolina this week, enabling Engadget to get their hands on one for testing.  “Without getting all long-winded on you,” they conclude, “the long and short of it is this: yeah, it really does work.”  Here are some of the details…

• Setup was simple, and the device activated in 30 minutes.
• Engadget thinks the box is rather big.
• “Calls were as clear as ever.”
• “One huge benefit of the 3G MicroCell over Sprint’s AIRAVE is data support.”
• “Web surfing and emailing was buttery smooth over 3G.”
• “We were slightly disturbed by how toasty the top got.”
• “We dig that AT&T will let users buy the box and then keep using it sans any monthly fees.”

The Apple Blog reviews the 3G Microcell

Charles Jade was always going to be hard to convince.  He opened his Apple Blog posting by accusing AT&T of “making the customer pay more and leeching off broadband providers”.  However, he came round after testing the 3G Microcell: “Overall, I am very pleased…and give it the highest praise an Apple devotee can: it just works!”

• “I was pleasantly surprised at how simple setup was.”
• “Call quality ranges from good…to static-free excellence…always better than the overpriced VoIP service from Time Warner Cable.
• “As for data speeds, it’s like being on Verizon’s network, that is very good.”
• “I’ve found signal quality degrading through multiple walls.”
• “Turning off Wi-Fi on the iPhone seems to increase both range and reception at extended distances.”
• “Sure, there’s a $150 price tag on service AT&T should already provide, but it’s a price that I and many other long-suffering iPhone users will no doubt we willing to pay.”

What are others saying about the 3G Microcell?

The Engadget and Apple Blog reviews have dozens of comments which make interesting reading.  As ever, views are polarised between those who are outraged that they need a femtocell and those who think it’s reasonable to pay for your own personal 3G cell at home.

Murphy Mac says “Bargain-basement DSL might not be the best choice for the MicroCell,” but overall, he concludes, “If I couldn’t get a signal at my house, I’d pay the $150 before I’d give up an iPhone.”

AT&T was criticised this week for high call-drop rates on the iPhone.  However, the company is still not saying much about the 3G Microcell, apart from rather mysteriously telling Apple Insider that issues with E911 (emergency calling) were delaying the rollout, and then completely retracting this statement.  Fierce Wireless reports AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom saying “The 3G Microcell complies with all FCC E911 requirements and the trials in Charlotte and Raleigh are going smoothly.”  The only other AT&T comment I could find is from Amy Bristle, who told Local Tech Wire in Raleigh that “Anybody who has coverage issues within a home may be interested in purchasing the MicroCell.”

David Chambers believes the 3G Microcell launch is the “next stage towards wide scale availability” of femtocells, likening the launch in Charlotte to the first crack in a dam that is set to burst.

AT&T customers have been tweeting about their experiences with the 3G Microcell.  Here’s a random selection:

• Bought an AT&T 3G Microcell yesterday, works great! Phone has 5 bars in the house now!
• AT&T Microcell is up and running. Took forever to activate and doesn’t work with wife’s non-3G phone. But 5 bars on the iPhone is sweet!
• Am I the only one who is shocked to learn that the AT&T 3G MicroCell does not support EDGE phones-only 3G phones?
• Just installed ATT Microcell. It works. This is the first time we have had good 3g signal at home.
• MicroCell is working great in Chapel Hill, NC! Went from 2 bars + Edge to 5 bars + 3G!!

Vodafone Access Gateway gets a positive review

Computer Shopper reviewed the Vodafone Access Gateway this week, giving it high marks for simplicity, and saying “the Gateway works beautifully”.  Their only gripe was that Vodafone is not offering cheaper calls and data over the femtocell, or any advanced femto services.

Unstrung Insider provides femtocell forecast

Unstrung’s latest Insider report, Femtocells: Market Outlook & Reality Check, says that there has been significant progress in resolving technical issues, but “the lack of revenue-generating business models…stands in the way of aggressive, widespread deployments.”  The report says consensus among femtocell vendors is that “orders will remain small – typically 10,000 to 20,000 units per carrier – well into the second half of 2010” (although I should say that ip.access wouldn’t agree on this point), with shipments of 500,000 units in 2009 increasing to around 4 million in 2010.

Unstrung also pointed out this week that Sprint and Verizon are keeping quiet on the launch of their own 3G femtocells in response to AT&T’s 3G Microcell.

Are femtocells poaching on wired nets?

Joanie Wexler at Network World tackles the controversial issue of femtocells using 3^rd party internet connections for backhaul, and gives a balanced view of the issues.  On the one hand, she says, there’s no real difference between accessing the Internet at home from an iPhone via WiFi or via a femtocell – why should the ISP have anything to complain about?  On the other hand, says Wexler, some ISPs might be tempted to block femtocell traffic.  But she points out that this issue is “being addressed…by the FCC, which has proposed making the blocking or degradation of a competitor’s traffic by an ISP illegal”.

BA introduces in-flight GSM

BA has introduced OnAir’s service on its new business class only flight from London City Airport to New York.  The service uses ip.access nanoGSM picocells on the plane to enable in-flight calls, SMS and data.  BA has not enabled voice calls as yet.  As a BA Executive Club member (sadly with a very junior status) I received an email from BA CEO Willie Walsh this week, apparently sent from the flight.  “In keeping with our pioneering spirit, [this] is the first transatlantic service with in-flight mobile communications provided by OnAir – which enables me to send this email from the comfort of my seat somewhere over the Atlantic,” said Mr Walsh.

In other news…

• Arun Handa of IntelliNet explains why Iu-h is important.
• Ubiquisys’ Will Franks says there are only four femto pioneers.
• Mr. Angry expects a free AT&T femtocell in New York.
• Alcatel-Lucent announces something mysterious in Russia.
• AirWalk raises another $5 million.
• Think Femtocell gives an update on 3G CDMA femto standards.
• Reuters reports on the curse of mobile data.
• Verizon kills the Hub (now perhaps people will stop confusing it with a femtocell).

Femtocell market update for week of 21 September 2009

The big story this week was AT&T’s 3G Microcell launch (covered here).  Elsewhere there wasn’t a huge amount of news in the world of femtocells – possibly because everyone was in Lisbon attending the Femto Forum plenary.  A couple of snippets…

Unstrung’s Michelle Donegan reported that her Vodafone Access Gateway is working.  She had a few problems getting it up and running, but the Vodafone support team (which apparently now includes five or six staff) have finally cracked it.

China Mobile (which hit half a billion subscribers this week) and Nokia Siemens Networks demonstrated a TD-LTE femtocell (far out!)  The demo showed live video streaming using a femtocell prototype, and according to China Mobile it “achieved throughputs which exceeded the typical xDSL speed currently possible via residential broadband connections”.

David Chambers reports on the femto discussion at last week’s 4G World conference.  Although it was universally acknowledged that small cells are essential in 4G to increase capacity, domestic LTE femtocells will not be required for a long time (at least according to AT&T).  This is because data speeds will be limited by domestic broadband, making LTE femtocells no faster than 3G ones for home users.  Furthermore, LTE handsets will be backward compatible so that they will work with 3G femtocells.  Having said this, another Think Femtocell post this week proposes that suburban areas might be the last to receive LTE coverage, and that femtocells could provide do-it-yourself solution for consumers.

AT&T launches 3G femtocell in Charlotte N.C.

AT&T tried to start selling its new 3G femtocell quietly via its retail stores in one city this week, releasing details about the device on a new 3G Microcell website.  But despite the low-key launch there was an immediate hailstorm of coverage in the blogosphere / twitterverse and in the mainstream telecoms press.  AT&T’s 3G Microcell is attracting interest as the first 3G femtocell to be deployed in North America (despite Sprint’s recent claims that they would “definitely be first”).

As reported by Unstrung some time ago, and reiterated this week, the 3G Microcell is supplied by Cisco and incorporates ip.access’ femtocell technology.  Like the recently launched Vodafone Access Gateway, it’s a 4-user device with closed access.  But the 3G Microcell is more sophisticated than the VAG in a number of ways – for example:

• It’s not just about coverage – AT&T offers an option of free calls from the femtocell for a monthly fee.
• Users can verify that they are using the femtocell (and therefore getting free calls) by looking for the “AT&T M-Cell” alpha tag on their phone idle screen (there’s a picture here and below).
• The provisioning and management systems are fully automated (for example the whitelist of authorised phones can be edited online by the end user).
• The 3G Microcell incorporates a router to prioritise femtocell traffic over other Internet traffic in the home.
• Location locking is enforced via GPS (just as with the Sprint and Verizon femtocells) – this is needed in the US due to regional spectrum licensing and strict location requirements for E911.

Jason Nash published the first end-user review of the 3G Microcell on Tuesday.  As well as a full description of the setup process, Jason explains the pricing…

3G Microcell price	Monthly fee for unlimited minutes
$149	$0
$49	$20
$49	$10 (for customers with AT&T Internet)
$49	$0   (for customers with AT&T Internet and fixed telephony)

Here are some interesting snippets from Jason’s review…

• “The difference [when using his cellphone at home] is night and day”
• “$150 is a good investment in the productivity I’ll get back when co-workers or customers call me on my cell phone.”
• “My sales rep, Nathan, was very helpful and mentioned they had sold 5 or so already that day.  Salisbury isn’t a big town so it shows the anticipation for the device.”

AT&T didn’t say much about the launch, but they did contact Engadget to explain that the pricing should be considered as a trial (implying that it could change before the device is launched nationwide).  After some false rumours about the pricing began to cause outrage on the Internet, an AT&T sales rep stepped in to clarify the situation.

You can’t buy the 3G Microcell from AT&T’s website, but you can enter a ZIP code to find out if it’s available in your area (Engadget reported that 28201 works, taking you to a list of 19 local stores where the device can be purchased).

The launch sparked off the now familiar storm of blog comments, divided between those who are outraged by the idea of having to pay to improve their mobile operator’s network coverage and those who think it’s a great idea.  Here’s a random sample of positive comments…

• “3G MicroCell has to be the best thing AT&T has done all year.”
• “I’m ready to pay for this NOW!”
• “I’m really considering dropping my Verizon phone line if the AT&T 3G MicroCell works well.”
• “I’ll get rid of my land line when this is available in Denver.”
• “Personally, I think $20 isn’t bad at all because it is cheaper than a landline, cheaper than Vonage and there is some QoS involved.”

And here are a few of the negative ones…

• “You’re paying the carrier extra money each month because they can’t provide you service that you’re already paying for.”
• “The entire reason femtocells are necessary is because your network sucks.”
• “AT&T says FU to wireless customers in 28 states. Femto plan is discounted if you buy their POTS which they only offer in 22 states.”
• “Let mobile carriers use your internet for free while you pay for the privilege.”
• “The femtocell covers a 5000 square foot range.  Unless you own a huge house, that will cover you and your neighbors, and yet you’re footing the bill.”

[The last couple of comments highlight a common misconception – a lot of people think that their femtocell and broadband connection are being used to improve the network for everyone.  They don’t understand that the femtocell provides a personal signal just for their own family and friends.]

Some other interesting snippets…

• This guy has decided to get two for use in his office.
• This person is wondering if the device is safe (nobody else seems to be worried).
• Here’s a conspiracy theorist – “Ever since AT&T came out wit the microcell I’ve only been able to get EDGE or GSM, no 3G in my house anymore.  Coincidence? No” [Er, yes actually].
• The location lock seems to be working.

What do the analysts think?

• ABI Research’s Aditya Kaul says “AT&T are known to have spend a lot of time and money on getting the femtocell service up and running.  If these pricing trials are any indication, this proves that AT&T continue to have the commitment towards femtocells and would like to play it right.”
• Engadget called the new design “cute” – preferring it to the original design of the trial unit (pictures of which were leaked earlier in the year).  One website bizarrely published a very old picture of the original ip.access Oyster 3G design.
• Juniper praises AT&T for focusing its marketing on the consumer proposition.
• PC Mag says the 3G Microcell could end AT&T’s iPhone troubles.
• Rethink Wireless says national rollout is expected in December.
• Slashgear thinks the woman in AT&T’s video promotions is ‘smug’.

Here are a few additional coverage links in the telecoms and geek press:

Apple blog, CNET, DSL reports, Engadget (published lots of articles), EE Times, Fierce Wireless, Gearlog, Gizmodo, Information Week, Mobile Burn,PC Mag, Phonedog, Slashgear, TechWorld, Telecompetitor, Unstrung, Wireless Week , Zacks

STOP PRESS: AT&T 3G Microcell site goes live

The AT&T 3G Microcell website is now live.

Engadget reports pricing details here:

“AT&T’s going to charge $19.99 a month for unlimited use unless you’ve got internet or landline (ironic) service with them, in which case you’ll pay $9.99. If you’ve got both internet and landline accounts, it’s free.”

Engadget also likes the new design.  This article sparks off the usual battle in the comments between those who hate the idea of paying to improve AT&T’s coverage and those who think it’s a great idea.

Femtocell market update for week of 14 September 2009

A ‘growing divide’ on 4G femtocells?

Fierce Wireless reports “a growing divide between those who believe femtocells and picocells are necessary in 4G coverage and those that don’t”.

In the Pro camp we find Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow, who used his talk at this week’s 4G World conference to urge network equipment vendors to focus on picocells, “because picocells and femtocells are going to be very necessary in the future”.

In the Anti camp, according to Fierce Wireless, is AT&T’s Senior VP of architecture and planning, Kris Rinne, who said at 4G World that AT&T Mobility is evaluating a 3G femtocell, but not currently planning to use femtocells to bolster its 4G network deployment though that could change over time.  (This doesn’t sound particularly anti-4G-femto to me, especially in light of Rinne’s reported comments at the conference that femtocells are “key to improved customer experience”.)

AT&T femtocell to launch next week?

Unstrung reported a leak by Gerald Turney, an AT&T retail connections manager from North Carolina: “AT&T 3G Microcell launching soon in a few locations in NC & GA,” he tweeted on Wednesday, having earlier posted about attending a training session on the device.  Zack’s Equity Research also reported that the launch will happen next week.  Turney’s tweets have since been removed, but not before Engadget and Gizmodo picked up on the story.

Electronista gives more details of the rumour, claiming a source on the show floor at 4G World, and showing a picture (courtesy of Mobiquizoid) of the 3G Microcell – a joint-branded AT&T / Cisco device.  It has been widely reported that Cisco and ip.access are supplying the femtocell solution for AT&T.

Cisco talks about its femtocell solution

According to Kittur Nagesh, Cisco’s senior director of Worldwide Service Provider marketing, Cisco is currently piloting a femtocell “solution” with major players.  He said we should expect an announcement soon on Cisco’s overall [femtocell] strategy, which will “mesh with the vendor’s connected home/connected business initiatives to support unified communications, video and collaboration applications”.  Cisco is an investor in UK femtocell specialist ip.access.

Meanwhile, Nagesh and other Cisco colleagues were out in force at 4G World tweeting from the conference talks and panel sessions.

Femto vs. WiFi debate rages on…

Endeavour partners claims that femtocells are “focused on solving a problem that is largely taking care of itself” – the problem being how to offload mobile data traffic from the macro network, and the solution (according to Endeavour) being WiFi.

Yankee Group Principal Analyst Vince Vittore notes that the issue was debated at this week’s 4G World conference.  “Someone finally asked the all-important question…I’ve got WiFi coverage all over my house.  Why do I need to buy a femto cell?”

But according to two new reports, operators are deluding themselves if they think the data offload problem will ‘take care of itself’.  Unwired Insight says that some 3G operators will run out of network capacity as early as next year if they don’t now start using complementary distribution methods, such as femtocells and broadcasting networks.  The company released a free white paper this week with further details as a sampler for its 120 page report: ‘Will 3G Networks Cope?’

Also this week, Neu Mobile published a free 77 page report with similar findings.  Neu tackles the WiFi question head on:

“Some commentators argue…that DSL/Cable broadband together with wifi meets customers’ needs and the additional expense of 3G (or 4G) wireless access is not justified.  It is our contention that service continuity/transparency and device choice are such significant consumer requirements as to necessitate full indoor 3G (and 4G) service for voice and broadband data…Femtocells are the way to deliver this cost effectively.”

Femto Business Case revisited

Informa analyst Gareth Willmer reports the ongoing debate over the business case for femtocells.  According to Willmer, “Pricing appears to be a central concern,” with $50 being bandied about as an acceptable wholesale price to operators.

In my view this deserves to be challenged.  Signals Research Group’s definitive work on the subject concludes that the business case is actually not very sensitive to the femtocell wholesale price, and that operators can make money with femtocells at well over $200.  In fact, I have never seen any study with a different conclusion.  So come on you femtocell business case sceptics, let’s see your working!  Or is $50 just a number plucked out of thin air?

FON & femtocells

This week Ubiquisys and FON announced a partnership to create FON-enabled femtocells.  Will it work?  Sadly not – here’s why.

In other news…

• Demand for 3G femtocells increasing but market supply remains low.
• Technical papers on Femtocells in this month’s IEEE Communication Magazine.
• Report on public policy issues for femtocells.
• BroadbandGenie exaggerates Vodafone Access Gateway problems.
• Josh Adelson says femtocells and broadband can play nicely.
• AIRAVE ‘a hit’ but doesn’t work in college dorms.
• Astra, Pirelli and NSN to build 3G femtocells with satellite backhaul.
• Sumitomo to build femtocells with Continuous Computing (“the only company deploying uniquely architected systems” – how could they not be?).
• Femtocells feature in the Christian Science Monitor!
• Home Gateway Initiative sees CPE supporting multiple wireless access standards (including femto).
• Spotify overwhelmed by mobile demand.

FON and femtocells

Sounds attractive, doesn’t it?  Femto + FON certainly seems like a hot idea, and the journalists have been all over the recent announcement from Ubiquisys and FON (both of which are backed by Google).

But unfortunately the Femto FON business model doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.  The analysis is a bit involved, so please bear with me here.  (If you already know all about FON, you can jump straight to the “Will it work?” section below…)

What is FON?

FON is a WiFi community. Community members, “Foneros”, share their home Internet connection with other Foneros, and in return gain access to other Foneros’ WiFi access points worldwide.  Customers who do not share their Internet connection (“Aliens”) can buy WiFi passes from FON.  Foneros whose access points are used by Aliens receive part of the revenue.

What is FON’s technology?

FON users need a WiFi router equipped with FON software.  The software allows WiFi to be shared in a secure environment (i.e. people using your WiFi connection don’t get access to your home network).  FON’s technology also handles authentication (ensuring that Foneros get open access, Aliens get paid access, and other people get no access on FON-enabled WiFi access points) and calculates the revenue share when Aliens use Foneros’ WiFi.

How does FON work with broadband providers?

FON’s business model depends on the goodwill of the ISPs, who may forbid connection sharing by their customers (i.e. FON is an ‘over-the-top’ service).  But FON has also struck deals with some broadband providers – notably BT in the UK and Neuf/SFR in France.  For example, BT has flashed FON’s software onto all BT Total Broadband Wi-Fi routers, and created its own BT FON community.

How does the FON model translate to 3G femtocells?

The idea is presumably that the owner of a closed access femtocell (lets call these folks ”FemtoFoneros”) can elect to open up access to other users.  FemtoFoneros would get free access to each others’ femtocells. FON technology would be needed to sort out which users can access which femtocells (perhaps by controlling a master whitelist somewhere in the network).

How is the mobile operator involved?

Since femtocells use licensed spectrum, you can’t have the equivalent of the ‘over-the-top’ FON model.  The only model that works is the one where the mobile operator is actively participating – the equivalent idea to the BT FON community.

What did Ubiquisys and FON announce recently?

The press release simply says that FON and Ubiquisys will work together to “combine the Ubiquisys femto and FON wireless community technologies”.

FON’s CEO comments on the announcement in his blog, but doesn’t shed any more light.  There are some clues in a PC World interview with Ubiquisys’ VP Marketing Keith Day.  It sounds as though Ubiquisys is planning to build a 16 user HSPA+ femtocell (so far no news – they already announced this with Percello).  The new information is that the device may incorporate WiFi as well as HSPA+, and will embed FON’s software for facilitating the sharing of 3G femto connections as well as WiFi.

Why would an operator want its customers to open up their femtocells to other users?

1. The FON model could potentially help operators solve localised coverage and capacity problems in areas where their macro network signal is weak or cannot serve the demand for mobile data.  A network of open access femtocells would improve the service for all users in the area.  In fact, operators have talked about the idea of deploying so-called “metro femtocells” for this purpose.
2. The revenue share opportunity might be a good way to get consumers to pay for femtocells – it’s a more sophisticated offer than a simple homezone discount.

Will it work?

I don’t think so.  To see why, we need to consider the role of ”FemtoAliens”.  There are two possible approaches here…

In the first scenario, FemtoAliens are all of the 3G subscribers on the operator’s network that are not already FemtoFoneros.  In this case, the femtocell would provide full open access to all the operators’ subscribers (in which case the FON software would not be needed for managing the access control list).  FemtoFoneros would get free access, and FemtoAliens would have to pay for access (presumably they would pay the same standard rates as on the macro network).  When a FemtoAlien uses a FemtoFonera’s femtocell, the FemtoFonera gets a share of the revenue.

One potential problem with this scenario is that the mobile operator has to give away revenue (FemtoFoneras not only get free calls in lots of places outside their homes, they also get a revenue share when FemtoAliens make calls on their femtocell).  The scenario introduces a lot of billing complexity (something operators tend to hate).  The FON software could help track usage and calculate the revenue share, but the charges and credits need to end up on the subscribers’ phone bills, so integration with the mainline billing system is going to be needed.  This is complex, expensive and time-consuming.

An alternative way for operators to achieve the same end result would be to offer femtocell customers a small monthly rebate in exchange for switching their femtocells to open access mode.  This is a much simpler billing task and doesn’t need the FON technology.  It’s also possible that the operator would need to sacrifice less revenue this way.  So there’s a much simpler alternative that makes the Femto FON model redundant.

In a second scenario, the FemtoAliens are 3G subscribers who pay extra to be able to access FemtoFoneras’ femtocells.  (If they don’t pay extra, then there’s no reason why all subscribers shouldn’t be FemtoAliens and we are back to scenario 1 above.)  But the paying extra thing looks like a non-starter as a marketing proposition – how is an operator going to explain to prospective FemtoAliens that there are some places where they can pay extra for the same services they get at standard prices in other places?  And how will a FemtoAlien know when s/he is actually using a FemtoFonera’s femtocell, and therefore paying extra?  Even if this can all be made to work, the authentication, revenue share and billing issues are even more complex than in scenario 1.  And the operator doesn’t even get to provide the benefits of metro femtocell coverage to all its subscribers – only to FemtoAliens.

So we end up having to conclude that the Femto FON proposition doesn’t actually help operators very much at all.

What do the analysts think?

DSL Reports comments: “While femtocells certainly should make waves the next two years as carriers start actually promoting them, it seems highly unlikely that FON is going to be invited to the party“.

ABI analyst Aditya Kaul doesn’t sound totally convinced either.

Summary

This is a nice bit of PR for Ubiquisys and FON, but sadly it looks unlikely to happen.

Femtocell market update for week of 7 September 2009

Telstra CTO wants femtocell apps

Despite having probably the best mobile network in the world (HSPA+ at 850 MHz with “spectacular” indoor coverage), Telstra CTO Hugh Bradlow is interested in femtocells.  He doesn’t want to use them for coverage, which he feels “sends the message that the operator has not built out its network properly”, but Mr. Bradlow is very interested in femto services.  “When they’ve got the applications, we’ll be right in there,” he told Total Telecom.

Divided opinions on the Vodafone Access Gateway

According to The Register, Vodafone’s Access Gateway femtocell has been experiencing some teething problems with service outages recently.  Bill Ray speculates whether Vodafone is “charging punters to take part in an extended trial”.

While I do know some people who have had temporary problems with the VAG, I have to say that mine has been working fine since I installed it several weeks ago.  Many of the comments on the Register say the same thing, so it appears that any problems are localised.  Tech Radar’s review of the device is also positive (the only complaint being about the price).

Also this week, Vodafone followed 3 UK by announcing that it will begin selling Novatel’s MiFi device in 3 countries.  But Daiwa Securities analyst Michael Kovacocy believes that Vodafone will have difficulty explaining the concept of a “mobile broadband hotspot” to consumers (the MiFi creates a mini WiFi hotspot using 3G for its Internet connection).

In other operator news…

Computable reports that the Dutch mobile operators have put femtocells on hold (OK, here’s the English version for those of you who have trouble with Dutch).

Fierce Wireless reports that voice subscribers provide the majority of Tele2’s revenue, which explains why Tele2 is using picocells to provide a high quality service.

AT&T has responded to criticism of its mobile data network’s performance with a YouTube video by “Seth the Blogger Guy”.  Seth explains that wireless data usage has been growing at over 300% per year, and that AT&T is working around the clock to enhance and expand the network.  Seth mentions the rollout of 3G on 850 MHz spectrum to improve in-building coverage.  Mobiquizoid wonders why Seth didn’t mention the 3G Microcell (AT&T’s forthcoming femtocell), and speculates that AT&T will announce the device at CTIA (October 7-9).

Meanwhile Sprint’s AIRAVE femtocell continues to get good marks for service quality, but it appears as though the company’s customer service agents may be more reluctant these days to give it away for free as a retention device.

Juniper Research forecasts femtocell growth

The need for improved 3G coverage at home will drive femtocell deployments past 15 million worldwide during 2012, according to a new report from Juniper Research, with significant upside potential for subscriber growth beyond these levels.  Revenues from femtocell services will reach more than $9 billion by 2014.

Femtocells & picocells at 4G World

The Femtocell and Picocell Summit at 4G World will discuss technology, deployments and the business case for femtocells and picocells.  According to Fierce Wireless, Continuous Computing will announce a femtocell customer win at the event.

Accenture’s Shahid Ahmed is said to be “bullish on femtocells”, but believes they will remain a “pipe dream” until operators sort out what happens if a customer from one carrier roams into someone else’s femtocell coverage area, and what happens if a customer moves the femtocell to another country.  (Unless Mr Ahmed has been misreported, this displays a worrying lack of knowledge about the state of the technology.  He might as well have said that the wheel will remain a pipe dream until someone figures out how to make it into a round shape.)

Femto friendly DSL

Genesis Technical Systems is promoting its Bonded DSL Rings technology as “an excellent femtocell deployment platform”, claiming that it is “the only technology that integrates the femtocell synchronization with sufficient DSL-based backhaul bandwidth capabilities over existing infrastructure.”  Femto Hub notes that this is the first case of a fixed-line access technology being enhanced to better support femtocell deployments.

WiFi vendor promotes femtocells

In her report from the LTE Focus conference in Amsterdam, Caroline Gabriel says “Wi-Fi has blazed a trail, but the up-and-coming technology to create small cells, allowing for targeted coverage and applications, is the femtocell”.  Caroline notes that even Steve Rayment (CTO of Wi-Fi vendor BelAir Networks) expects Wi-Fi access points to be replaced, in some situations, by LTE femtocells in future.  “Smart carriers realize Wi-Fi can be a land grab for LTE femtocells and picocells,” he said.

Femto vendors claim numerous trials

According to Telecom Asia, Huawei’s VP Wireless Marketing Shao Yang says “Huawei has deployed 38 commercial femtocell networks worldwide”.  Alcatel Lucent’s senior marketing manager for wireless networks, David Swift, is reported as saying “We have now two commercial femtocell network on-going deployments and more than 15 trials with other major operators.”

This week’s evidence for the mobile data explosion

• Over 65 million people are now actively using the mobile optimised version of Facebook’s website (up from 20 million eight months ago).
• Facebook is responding to mobile operator requests to reduce its bandwidth requirements (e.g. by reducing photo resolution).
• Ericsson says the number of mobile broadband subscribers will hit 3bn in five years.
• Nokia Siemens says that mobile data traffic will grow 10 times faster than fixed over the next five years.

ip.access expands into India

Telecom Tiger reports that ip.access is expanding in India, where the use of picocells to solve service quality issues is particularly effective due to spectrum constraints.  “The trend of call drops, especially indoors, is very widely visible in India” according to the publication.  Addressing these issues is especially important to improve customer retention as India is set to introduce Mobile Number Portability.

Zynetix announces support for Oyster 3G femtocell

A new solution from Zynetix accelerates the deployment of small volumes of ip.access Oyster 3G™ femtocells.  Operators can now deploy the Oyster 3G using either the on-premise Zynetix MobileHub™ or the Zynetix softMSC™ 2G/3G core.  The solution supports SIP breakout for voice calls and either a local or remote GGSN for high speed packet data.

In other news…

• Libyan airlines to deploy in-flight GSM with OnAir (using ip.access picocells).
• Dean Bubley thinks “outdoor applications” may reverse the trend towards indoor mobile data usage.
• Stock Blog Hub says “Femtocell is quickly emerging as a fundamental technology enabler in the deployment of next-generation (3G/4G) wireless network infrastructure”.
• But Endeavour Partners thinks the data problem will be solved with WiFi, not femtocells.
• For David Chambers, “the battle is not between WiMAX and LTE, but instead between WiFi and Femtocells”.
• David also thinks the managed service model for femtocells will be challenging.
• Telco 2.0 says operators should allow customers to access resources ad hoc across any available wireless network.
• Qualcomm outlines plans to combine femtocell radio with the baseband on its chipset…
• …and grants a licence to its CDMA femto patents to GWT.
• picoChip unveils PC9608 development platform for LTE femtocells.
• 10 Mbps HSDPA on Percello PRC6000.
• Lime Microsystems CEO Ebrahim Bushehri makes the case for programmable femtocell silicon.
• Ubiquisys and Motorola win InfoVision awards for their femtocell technologies.
• Mobile Insider says “awards are nice, but femto vendors need to survive 2009 before hopefully making money in 2010 and beyond”.

Femtocell market update for week of 31 August 2009

Vodafone publishes indoor 3G coverage maps

Vodafone has published new 3G coverage maps for the UK, for the first time showing both indoor and outdoor coverage.  From a glance at the maps it’s obvious that indoor coverage is very poor in many areas.  (In practice the situation may be even worse than the maps show – for example, my office is shown as having good 3G coverage, but in reality I have no Vodafone 3G signal at all.)

So why is Vodafone highlighting its poor indoor coverage, rather than trying to hide it like the other networks do?  Judging from the banner ad for the Vodafone Access Gateway on the coverage maps web page, the answer appears to be that the operator is confident in its new femtocell offering.  Indoor 3G coverage is a problem for all the UK networks, but Vodafone has a competitive advantage in being the only UK operator that can fix it with a 3G femtocell.

There’s another interesting insight on Toby Treacher’s blog.  Toby was involved in formulating the go-to-market strategy for the Vodafone Access Gateway, and he says that it was hard for Vodafone to accept that such a product was necessary.  “To do so would be to acknowledge flaws in their service provision,” he says.  Toby goes on to suggest that other operators are “more reluctant to be honest” about their network problems.

With all the focus on coverage, it’s noteworthy to find one new user who is motivated by the Access Gateway’s potential for saving money.  Despite the lack of any homezone tariff, Richard Derwent Cooke comments “we’ll save the cost of the additional rental [for the Vodafone Access Gateway] on not making calls to mobiles from our home phone”.

Mobile networks will run out of capacity in 2010

Experienced analysts Alastair Brydon and Mark Heath are forecasting that 3G networks will fail to cope with the explosion in mobile Internet usage.  In a new Unwired Insight report entitled “Will 3G Networks Cope?”, they conclude that “continued migration of mobile users from 2G to 3G networks combined with rapidly-increasing usage of intensive services such as video will quickly result in congestion of HSPA networks, as early as 2010 for some operators”.

Femtocells are recommended as part of the solution (along with tariff changes, fair usage policies and slower migration of 2/2.5G users to 3G).  This week’s Think Femtocell blog posting provides a nice summary of the arguments for using femtocells to solve the mobile broadband capacity crunch.

iPhone overloads 3G networks

The New York Times reports that the average iPhone owner uses 10 times more network capacity than the average smartphone user, and that AT&T’s 3G network is straining to meet the demand.  Indoor use is a particular problem (which might explain why there are so many impatient AT&T customers waiting for the 3G Microcell).  AT&T CTO John Donovan admits “It’s been a challenging year for us…overnight we’re seeing a radical shift in how people are using their phones.  There’s just no parallel for the demand.”

Although it’s AT&T in the spotlight right now, the New York Times says other carriers “will face similar problems as they sell more smartphones, laptop cards and eventually tablets that encourage high data usage”.  Analysts agree – for example, Forrester said this week that mobile Internet penetration in Europe will reach critical mass in 2009, and then treble by 2014.

Meanwhile Om Malik says the iPhone problems have highlighted the fact that “today’s 3G networks are like glittering skyscrapers built on a foundation of matchsticks” (he is referring to backhaul bottlenecks which, of course, can be solved by deploying femtocells).

Yankee Group expects mass market femtocell adoption in 2012

A new Yankee Group ‘focus report’ highlights a number of issues that it says will prevent mass market femtocell deployments from happening until 2012.  The issues are; (1) business models, (2) scaling the technology and (3) establishing zero-touch life cycle management.  I must admit that I’m scratching my head a bit on this one.  While it’s true that mass market femtocell deployments will only happen when operators are happy with the economics and the robustness of the technology, these issues are pretty much solved today.  2012 seems very pessimistic indeed.

Meanwhile Reuters, Total Telecom and Cellular News report ‘new research’ from Frost & Sullivan.  However, it looks to me like this is just a re-promotion of a year-old research report.

Lets get this straight – the MiFi is not a femtocell

3 in the UK is set to launch the MiFi, a tiny device which creates a WiFi hotspot using 3G for its connection to the Internet.  Fierce Wireless says the MiFi “replicates some of the features of a femtocell by enabling Wi-Fi devices to connect to 3G networks”.  Hmm, femtocells don’t actually do that.  In fact, the MiFi is pretty much the opposite of a femtocell:

	MiFi	Femtocell
Air interface	WiFi	3G
Backhaul	3G	Fixed broadband
Effect on mobile network	Traffic overload	Offloaded traffic

Tele2 deploys ip.access picocells

ip.access has signed a frame contract with European mobile operator group Tele2 to deploy nanoGSM picocells.  Sales VP Jamie Cave says the deal demonstrates the ongoing demand for ip.access’ 2G picocell technology worldwide.

Telus CTO on femtocells

Michelle Donegan tweets a comment from the CTO of Telus: “the engineer in me loves it…but on the marketing side it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”  Well, he’s the CTO – what does he know about marketing?

In other news…

• Picocells are the answer for in-flight mobile phone use.
• Femto Hub urges Verizon to deploy femto services.
• PJ Louis says the point of femtocells is to mine more value out of the existing 3G technology.
• dtac trials UMTS 900 MHz in Thailand.
• Mobilite says femtocells will enable 4G.
• Ubiquisys says IMS femtocells are good for business customers.

Femtocell market update for week of 24 August 2009

Wall Street Journal covers femtocells

A WSJ article this week (full text here) points out that “carriers are reluctant to talk about coverage problems…making femtocells a tough product to market to consumers”.  However, Kevin Packingham, senior VP of product development for Sprint, is quoted as saying “advertising will ramp up with next-generation femtocells since it will be easier to promote the additional data services that can run off of the device…Looking down the road, in several years, I think everyone will have one.”

GigaOM says femtocells are on a “road to nowhere”

Om Malik takes a very negative view of femtocells in his blog posting, which also appears in Business Week.  While admitting that femtocells are “a good way for carriers to offload the pressure on their cellular networks,” he says take-up has been disappointing and argues that WiFi is a better approach.

Qualcomm’s Steve Brightfield says Malik is too quick to write off femtocells.  “The expectation that business models, price points and consumer knowledge is going to happen overnight is reserved to bloggers and other casual observers of technology,” he says.

Glenn Fleishman picks up the theme at WiFi Net News, stating “I’d rather simply use Skype on my iPhone over my home Wi-Fi network rather than a femtocell”.  With recent surveys showing an explosion of WiFi usage on mobile devices, and WiFi phone shipments set to double every 2 years, it’s possible that he may not be alone in this.  However, David Chambers replies that femtocells are much simpler than WiFi for ordinary consumers, as well as being “compatible with all phones which allows customers to continue to express their personality with their phone choice”.

As the discussion spread more widely around the blogosphere, attention was focused on the issue of who should pay for a femtocell.  Views are typically polarised, as seen here: one commenter believes it’s “completely comical if service providers expect customers to pay for a device whose primary goal is to reduce utilisation on the service providers network”, while another points out that “People pay for improving their experience all the time.”

The femto community must “get real about WiFi”

Continuing with the WiFi theme, Dean Bubley says he still sees “various protagonists in the femtocell industry suggesting that femtos could potentially replace WiFi as an access mechanism in homes or businesses, [which] diminishes the credibility of the companies involved.”

As a protagonist in the femto industry myself, I don’t really hear that argument being made.  Most of my peers accept that WiFi and femtocells will live side-by-side in the home and office.  However, I would argue that, where a femtocell and a WiFi connection are both available, users will probably leave their device (dual mode or otherwise) set to use the access network which is available outside as well as inside (i.e. 3G), as long as data usage is free on the femtocells, or course.

On a similar note, TMCnet Editor Kelly McGuire says “In the enterprise domain, WiFi continues to have great promise, but I see carriers moving towards offering free femtocells inside the enterprise to capture and retain their share of the in-building communications market.”

Hay Systems gets radical with femtocells

After launching a femtocell managed service offering for operators on Wednesday, Hay Systems Ltd went one step further on Friday by announcing an intention to sell femtocells direct to consumers.  The idea is to persuade mobile operators to interconnect with HSL’s femto system by getting consumers to register their interest on the company’s web site.  (HSL claims its product has the ability to work with any network operator, or even (amazingly!) multiple networks.)  The Register is sceptical, saying “there seems little incentive for the network operators to open up, unless HSL can generate overwhelming amounts of interest”.

On the other hand, The Register goes on to suggest that a more interesting idea would be for a company such as UK01 (which holds guard band spectrum in the UK) to provide HSL femtocells.  As it turns out, UK01 is already using ip.access’ nanoGSM picocells instead, and the company’s CEO Magnus Kelly will be speaking at ip.access’ user group meeting in September.

In other news

• New femtocell events calendar available on Femto Hub.
• Symbian’s David Wood gets into femtocells.
• Vodafone Access Gateway a “very useful con” (huh?).
• No femto plans at O2 UK?
• Qualcomm and ip.access in India.
• Interview with CCPU’s Manish Singh.
• Telcos planning big CAPEX investments.
• AT&T requires smartphone users to sign up for data plans.
• Webinar – will consumers pay more for a better mobile data service?
• Cisco’s Jim Tavares to speak on femtocells at 4G World.

Femtocell market update for week of 17 August 2009

70 million femtocell users of worldwide by 2014

According to a new report from Berg Insight, femtocell shipments will grow from 200,000 in 2009 to 12 million worldwide in 2014, by which time there will be almost six femtocells per macro base station, and 70 million regular femtocell users.  These are impressive statistics, but ZDNet Asia headlines the story “Femtocells still years away from mainstream,” and cites last year’s ABI survey that found three-quarters of Europeans were unaware of femtocells.  Talk about glass half empty!  How about: “Femtocells to become mainstream within a couple of years” and “One quarter of Europeans familiar with femtocells a year before the region’s first commercial deployment”?

The magic of femtocells

The Yankee Group has also published a new femtocell report.  According to the blurb, “The current femtocell opportunity is ripe for mobile and integrated operators.  During the next few years, other types of service providers, including fixed operators and MSOs, will turn to femtocells as a key enabler of their wireless strategy [sic]”.

The time for femtocells is now

Carl Weinschenk calls the rollout of femtocells “extraordinarily important”.  He believes the devices provide benefits “both to subscribers and to carriers’ bottom lines…by relieving stress on expensive and increasingly overcrowded cellular spectrum”.  Weinschenk says that femtocells could potentially “become as familiar as Wi-Fi routers.”

Femtocells are the way to cut your phone bill

Macworld’s Glenn Fleishman believes Sprint’s AIRAVE femtocell makes sense for people who can save on long-distance call charges by switching from fixed to mobile (see here, for an example).  But he criticises Verizon’s Network Extender (and by implication Vodafone’s Access Gateway) as “useless if you’re trying to save money”.  Without a homezone tariff associated with the femtocell, he complains, subscribers “burn through minutes just as fast via the femtocell as over the regular phone network”.

Fixed, mobile or both?

ABI Research says that nearly half of US consumers are interested in cellular modems, but only at half the monthly fee that service providers are charging.  Apparently some consumers are reluctant to pay for mobile broadband because they are already paying for Internet access at home.  One way around this dilemma is being promoted by Telefonica O2 in the Czech Republic.  The company’s ‘two-Internet-connections-for-the-price-of-one’ offer bundles fixed line DSL with mobile broadband from CZK 750 per month.  With the majority of mobile data traffic generated at home (even with laptops), femtocells would potentially complement this offer very nicely.

On a related note, David Chambers wonders, “If I had a femtocell, would I use a broadband stick when indoors rather than WiFi?”  He says WiFi winds down his laptop batteries quite quickly, and expects an improvement with mobile broadband.

Blogger Cat Keynes cottons on to femtocells

“[The Vodafone Access Gateway] has the business end inside of what a $200,000 base station houses.  So selling it for £160 is pretty incredible,” she says.

Interview with NEC’s Anil Kohli

NEC’s Global Head of Femtocells Anil Kohli forecasts femtocell volumes to reach 200-300k by the end of 2009, with mass market take-up the following year.  In addition to SoftBank’s live service in Japan, he says NEC has two contracts in Europe (one for residential and one for enterprise femtocells).

Kohli also hints that there have been problems with some handsets complying properly with 3GPP specifications.  “We can’t change the handset software, [so] we’ve had to accommodate these issues through software workarounds in our solution,” he commented.

EU invests in LTE Advanced

The European Commission has released €18 million in funding for research into LTE Advanced.  The technology will ultimately offer mobile internet speeds up to a hundred times faster than today’s 3G networks, and will use Self-Organising Network techniques to incorporate femtocells.

In other news…

• Femtocells should be part of the drive for green radio technologies.
• Twitter user speculates that poor mobile phone reception is a conspiracy to create an artificially large market for femtocells.
• Vedat Eyuboglu says femtocells will accelerate fixed mobile substitution.
• Femtocells – your very own network…
• Ubiquisys demonstrates HSDPA on Percello-based femto.
  
• Howard Wilcox pleads for catchier femtocell brand names and points to the marketing challenges.
• Defense Information Systems Agency tests femtocell security.
• Gogo WiFi service now available on 100 American Airlines flights.