Femtocell market update for week of 6 October 2008

Verizon CTO talks about femtocell plans

Mark Wegleitner revealed some of Verizon’s thinking on femtocells in a recent interview with Telephony Online…

“On femtocells and dual-mode phones: We’re planning for trial of femtocells. Both had obstacles. In one case, the femtocell cost was a problem. In other case, the availability of dual-mode phones was a problem. Both of those will be overcome. We look at femtocells right now as a desirable solution but mostly for coverage purposes, not for additional feature capability. If a customer wants to cover a spot in their home, for example, femtocells are a solution. It isn’t necessarily dirt cheap to do that, but on the whole, there are circumstances where that would makes some sense. In the dual-mode phone case, you can get a little more into the feature world, and you get coverage as well, but you’ve got to have the phone, and that’s an obstacle in some cases.”

“[Femtocells] might be [a way to add connected home features] some day…You might be able to get into a little more in the home networking world…I could in theory make EVDO…or LTE a part of a home networking environment. We’ve always had a vision of home networking that involved more than just [coax] or even WiFi.”

Kineto gets $15.5 million for femtocell push

Kineto Wireless has raised an additional $15.5 million to support its femtocell development efforts.  The round included funding from Motorola, one of Kineto’s femtocell partners.  NEC (Kineto’s other major femtocell OEM partner) made a strategic investment in Kineto last month.

Femtocells in Convergence World

Femtocells feature heavily in September’s issue of Convergence World.  IEC President, John Janowiak, asks “who needs femtocells“, and ip.access CEO Steve Mallinson gives some of the answers in a Q&A session.  Steve also explains how femtocells fit within the connected home.

PC World reports the UMA vs. femtocells debate

The UMA camp claims that interference will make femtocells unsuitable for use in dense areas, but Femto Forum chairman Simon Saunders counters that UMA’s use of unlicensed spectrum is increasingly not scalable.  “The more success you have, the more problems you have with interference…With licensed spectrum that isn’t the case.  Each and every femtocell is under the full control of the operator.  No interference is actually possible without the operator being in full control of managing that.”  Nice argument – shame about the grammar

Bundled service offerings – would you like femtocells with that, sir?

O2 is giving subscribers one year of free 8 Mbps DSL when they sign up for the MNO’s standard mobile broadband service.  This type of bundling fits well with the femtocell concept, especially in light of recent consumer research by Motorola indicating that many people would want to buy a femtocell from their broadband provider rather their mobile network operator (see Femtocell Market update for week of 23 June 2008).

Martin Sauter takes things a step further on his WirelessMoves blog.  He believes that “femtos packaged together in a single box with WiFi and DSL/cable access sold by a converged fixed/mobile operator will best sell in a bundle which also includes mobile devices, pre-configured applications on them that can access resources in the home network, a media server at home and some IPTV.”  Martin also reflects on femtocells in the connected home, following a discussion with ip.access’ Thierry Samama.

Mobiles phones a risk to air safety?

“Could a laptop computer or mobile phone have caused Qantas QF72 to plunge near Exmouth in Western Australia this week? The answer is yes,” cries Chris Zombolas – technical director of Australia’s EMC Technologies.  Zombolas reports that experts are not convinced in general about the safety issues of using mobile phones on planes, although none appear to be talking about the Quantas system, which uses picocells to prevent interference.  Zombolas himself believes that picocells “don’t take into account the human factors such as passengers defying the rules”.  He says, “electromagnetic interference is insidious and relaxing the restrictions will send the wrong message to passengers.”

Also this week, a new initiative called “Sense About Science” seeks to dispel some of the myths about mobile phone radiation.  The scientists involved had a look at a range of products claiming to protect us from electromagnetic fields, and concluded that they exploited people’s fears, were unnecessary and generally did not do what they promised.

In other news…

• Carl Weinschenk believes femtocells are in the ascendancy
• Dean Bubley compares femtocells and repeaters
• ip.access selects Keithley for mass-market femtocell production testing
• NextPoint’s Natasha Tamaskar discusses the need for femtocells to address E911 (emergency calls)
• Think Femtocell gets a makeover.