Femtocell market update for week of 28 July 2008

Airave to launch nationwide from 17 August

Following market trials in selected cities, Sprint’s Airave CDMA 1X femtocell will launch nationwide in the USA from 17 August. Pricing options have changed significantly from the trial. The service now costs $99.99 (for the box itself) + $4.99 per month (excluding taxes and various Sprint surcharges) for “Enhanced Coverage”. Unlimited calling plans are available as bolt-on options (presumably because subscribers who already have Sprint’s “Simply Everything” plan wouldn’t want to pay twice for all-they-can-eat).

It’s interesting that Sprint feels it can charge its customers nearly $160 simply to improve voice coverage for 12 months. I’ve heard many operators, especially in Europe, express the view that there’s no way they could get away with this, even with a femtocell that offers a personal 3G signal for high speed data (something the Airave lacks). It’s also interesting that Sprint has chosen to pitch the Airave as “like having your own miniature cell tower”. This would also be anathema to European operators, who are very sensitive to potential consumer fears about radiofrequency emissions.

There’s been a downbeat reaction to the news on the blogs. Joel Hruska finds it “extremely ironic that Sprint is charging users for the dubious privilege of providing their own backhaul”. Cell Fanatic is also disappointed: “Unfortunately the lack of EVDO data support really kills the deal for those using devices that do not offer WiFi. Combine the lack of EVDO with the problems of moving from the AIRAVE station and outside of your home or office and the likely prognosis is dropped calls”.

One other slightly bizarre thing is that the main Airave link on Sprint’s site takes you to a nextel.com web page. The Airave doesn’t actually support Nextel phones.

ABI asks whether femtocells are at a tipping point?

Continuing the theme of the femto marketing proposition, Stuart Carlaw points out that many operators are currently mired in the details of their consumer proposition prior to launching femtocells, whereas vendors have moved their focus on to more advanced femtozone services and connected home features. He also believes it is “imperative that standardization does not slow time to market too much; carriers need to combine bravery with educated guesswork to get a pre-standards product to market.”

Vendors expand on connected home vision

Airvana believes the next logical step for femtocells is to get your household devices to interact with one another – a concept they call “Home 2.0″. “While sitting on your couch, you remember you need to bake a pot roast. No problem — you aim your phone at the oven and set it to 400 degrees.” (Then you flip out your phone’s robotic limb feature and send it off to actually put the pot in the oven and make a salad.)

Meanwhile a new ip.access femtocell briefing paper, “Introducing 3G femtocells successfully to the home”, explores the femtocell consumer proposition, including femtozone services in the connected home (download here).

Too much work for the standards bods?

Unstrung asks whether the focus on finalising LTE standards specifications for 3GPP Release 8 by the end of 2008 could cause the femtocell standards work to slip. However, several sources point out that femtocells are a high priority on the standards agenda, and they are getting the attention they need. Meanwhile the 3g4g blog is unusually off target with its comment that “Currently, none of the parties involved in trialling femtocells are interested in standardisations”.

Airvana & Alcatel Lucent announce CDMA femto partnership

This looks like a repeat of the announcement the two companies made in March at CTIA. The combined offering for CDMA operators will comprise Airvana’s HubBub femtocell access point and Alcatel-Lucent’s IMS core network elements. Airvana will add new interfaces to its femtocells so that they can be integrated with AlcaLu’s IMS mobile core products. “Right now, this is a development agreement, not a supply agreement,” Alcatel spokesman Kurt Steinert explained. It’s not yet determined which company, or both, will sell the final product. Nor is it clear when the integrated hardware will be finished and ready for sales, he said.

Airvana and Hitachi also announce a CDMA femto partnership

This is another development agreement, in which customized versions of Airvana’s femtocell products will inter-work with Hitachi’s core network products for the Japanese market.

It looks like Airvana is committing to lots of development work this week, which is partly driven by the need for customised core network integration in the CDMA world where there is no equivalent of the 3GPP Iu standard. IMS provides a potential way to get around this problem. For further background on IMS and femtocells, read this week’s Think Femtocells article.

Femtocells – to be or not to be?

Frost & Sullivan programme manager Luke Thomas says operators are optimistic about the cost savings and consumer benefits of femtocells, but cites a few issues still to be resolved. Some of these can already been dealt with (e.g. hand-in and firmware upgrades), while others are well on the way to being managed (e.g. interference and QoS).

Another new femtocell report

Research & Markets has announced a new report, “Femtocells: The Next Wave in Fixed Mobile Convergence” (is this really new, or just a new announcement of an old report, like this one for instance?). According to the headline, femtocells will be “the next wave in Fixed Mobile Convergence”.

Boeing 777 aircraft fitted with in-flight mobile phone service

AeroMobile reached a new milestone this week with the first full service entry of its system on an Emirates Boeing 777 aircraft.