Femtocell market update for week of 22 December 2008

I’m assuming there won’t be much more news this week so I’m posting this early.
Plunging down the hype cycle (for no apparent reason)
A few weeks ago, a Gartner analyst said we had reached the peak of the femtocell hype cycle.  Since then we’ve seen a lot of negative reporting about femtocells.
For example, this week Fierce [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 15 December 2008

Vodafone Spain femto trial is for business customers
The drive to deploy femtocells in the enterprise gained momentum this week, with Vodafone announcing plans to pilot an “Access Gateway” (Huawei femtocell) for its business customers in Spain.
Femtocell standards progress
Airvana’s Doug Kniseley gives a good round-up of the year’s developments in femtocell standardisation, including the “herculean last [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 8 December 2008

AT&T excited about Q209 femtocell launch
John Stankey, president and CEO of AT&T’s operations, said AT&T is validating femtocell technology now with customers and employees.  ”We expect that we will be into a broader-scale metropolitan deployment the second quarter of next year,” Stankey said. “We are really excited about this…I don’t know how you compete in [...]

The picocell is dead! Long live the picocell!

Picocells have been getting a bad press recently, so I thought I’d try to redress the balance a bit.  Here are some of the things you’re being told about picocells, and why you shouldn’t believe them…
Picocells require expensive dedicated backhaul

I’ve heard this in presentations at femtocell conferences, but it isn’t true.  Most picocells use consumer [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 1 December 2008

Good news on femtocell interference
The Femto Forum has published the results of an extensive radio study, concluding that interference is not a barrier to wide scale femtocell deployment even when the femtocells occupy the same radio channel as the macro network.  Many Femto Forum member companies contributed to the study, [...]

Top Story: man with vested interest gives opinion

It’s either a slow news day at Total Telecom, or else this headline is evidence of a femtocell press backlash.  José Costa e Silva, CEO of DECT vendor Gigaset, says that “femtocell technology lacks any kind of viable business model”.  I have no problem with José expressing his opinion, but where’s the news?  [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 24 November 2008

Singapore’s StarHub launches world’s first commercial 3G femtocell service
(Website ¦ FAQ)
StarHub’s ‘Home Zone’ femtocell is currently limited to the first 200 subscribers, so it’s perhaps more of a market trial than a full commercial launch.  It’s similar in principle to Sprint’s trial of the AIRAVE, which was initially limited to a couple [...]