Was Airave Sprint’s second choice?
This article makes the interesting assertion that Sprint originally planned to roll out a WiFi dual mode service, but switched to femtocells after the launch of HotSpot@Home by T-Mobile. The author argues that femto was therefore Sprint’s second choice, but it looks to me as though the headline should read “Sprint prefers femtocells”.
Dean Bubley makes a “top of the head” femto forecast on his Disruptive Wireless blog this week: <1m in 2009; 2-3m in 2010; 4-5m in 2011; 5-8m in 2012. Many analysts are predicting “hockey-stick” uptake from 2010, but Dean is more sceptical about how fast the market will take off, and believes that “femtos will only become truly massmarket when we get to LTE”.
(Elsewhere, based on stats showing that those who substitute their fixed phone for mobile are twice as likely to be heavy drinkers, Dean suggests that we femto vendors should integrate our technology into electronic beverage coolers 
A new Research & Markets report predicts the femtocell market will reach $434 million in 2009, growing to $9 billion by 2014 – that’s the biggest number I’ve seen associated with femtocells. Rather bizarrely, the flier for the report begins: “Femtocells, are they a secret gathering of female revolutionaries or a miniature mobile phone base station? Probably the latter, but it is intriguing to think about the former”. There’s also some out-of-date speculation about Google rolling out a femtocell network in the US with its 700 MHz spectrum (which, of course, it has now admitted it was never serious about trying to win in the first place).
Analysys Mason says femtocells are good for mobile TV
DVB-H trials have shown significant indoor usage, with 36–50% of participants viewing mobile TV mainly at home despite the availability of conventional TVs. The report concludes that 3G femtocells offer an alternative means of delivering mobile TV into the home, allowing MNOs to relieve their macro networks of substantial loads and potentially offer higher quality picture and sound than is possible with outdoor 3G and broadcasting networks.
Will operators get femto pricing wrong?
Telephony Online thinks that operators will mess up the femtocell consumer proposition by making it too complicated. Instead of monthly subscriptions, their advice is for operators to just sell the boxes for a one-time fee.
This article includes a good write-up from Avren Events’ recent Next Generation Networks & Basestations conference in Bath. For example, according to Ubiquisys, “femtos are a problem because they could cause interference with existing nearby cell sites and neighboring femtos”. Ubi have been talking a lot recently about the need for “Cognitive Radio” in femtocells, which is really just a fancy name for what other vendors call “Network Listen” – the idea being that the femtocell automatically scans the surrounding radio environment then adjusts the frequency of operation and power output to minimize interference and optimize the link.
Are there already 23 femtocell vendors?
Continuous Computing VP Manish Singh says that his company has “23 active engagements” in the femtocell marketplace. If 23 engagements can be interpreted as 23 femto vendor customers (CCPU writes protocol stacks for femtocells and femto-gateways), then there must be a lot of femto companies still in stealth mode.
RadioFrame announces 2nd generation OmniRadio
RFN says it is planning a second generation of its OmniRadio femto chip, which will add LTE and WiMAX. So the marketing story goes that the chip allows the possibility of upgrading a femtocell in the field from 2G to 3G to 4G, as and when the time comes.
Beneath another “mast in your living room” headline, Ubiquisys’ Will Franks advocates open access deployment of femtocells, whereas Motorola’s Malcolm Latham says closed access is preferable. But wait a minute – aren’t these two partners? The difference of views might be down to the fact that the two companies are looking at things from different directions. Open access improves RF performance, which is a primary consideration for Ubiquisys because they build the Access Point. However, the improved performance comes at the cost of a greater signalling load in the core network, which is presumably of some concern to Motorola as they are providing the femto gateway.
Components in Electronics looks at femtocells
This article looks at the opportunity for femtocell component suppliers, including comments from our own Chris Cox.
Data traffic is now exceeding voice traffic on T-Mobile UK’s network, and is responsible for 22% of ARPU. At the same time, Orange UK unveiled its third Digital Media Index – the latest findings reveal a sharp increase in mobile internet access:
- Mobile internet – 35% increase in page impressions
- Mobile TV – 87% increase in the total hours viewed
- Video downloads doubled in the last year
- Single music track downloads – 289,000 tracks downloaded in December 07.
Filed under: Market updates | Tagged: Airave, Analysys Mason, Avren Events, Continuous Computing, Dean Bubley, Digital Media Index, Femtocell, femtocells, ip.access, Motorola, Orange, RadioFrame Networks, Research & Markets, Sprint, T-Mobile, Telephony Online, Ubiquisys
