Operator news
Cosmote has launched a residential femtocell offering in Greece. The 4-user Huawei device costs €90, and is branded ‘Perfect Mark’.
Vodafone has launched a femtocell for business customers in the Netherlands. The ‘SinaalPlus’ device is actually a Huawei 4-user residential femtocell, but home users will have to wait until mid-2012 to get their hands on one.
Meanwhile, Vodafone in Hungary has announced that its recently launched ‘Mini Bázis’ residential femtocell offering is now available to its corporate customers.
SFR has confirmed that it is offering its femtocell free of charge to all its mobile subscribers. The €49 (or is that €49m?) price is refunded upon first activation. For customers with the new Neufbox Evolution home gateway, the femtocell is available as a USB connected add-on. David Chambers points out that the move is a “pre-emptive competitive strike against Illiad“, which has also announced a free 3G femtocell integrated with its upcoming Freebox Revolution set-top box.
Bouygues has also talked publicly about femtocells recently, but expects to use them only for LTE. CEO Olivier Roussat told journalists “For LTE, the femtocell will allow us to improve coverage in buildings significantly”.
SoftBank says it will embed SkyHook’s positioning technology into its femtocells. The technology (which combines Wi-Fi, cellular, and GPS readings) will help the operator obtain accurate location information for its femtocells in Japan. Light Reading’s Michelle Donegan reports that SoftBank has installed 60,000 free femtocells for its residential customers.
Analysts probe small cell backhaul
Mobile Experts has announced a new report, which forecasts 1.8 million small cell wireless backhaul shipments in 2016, with associated revenues of $1.5 billion (so that’s just under $1000 per installation).
ABI Research has carried out similar research, concluding that 58% of outdoor small cells will be backhauled using wireless techniques by 2016.
Vendor announcements
- ip.access launches 8-user C-class residential femtocell access point
- ip.access incorporates Acme Packet security gateway into its end-to-end femto solution
- SpiderCloud launches its enterprise femtocell cluster solution (yet again)…
- …but established femto vendors are not greatly impressed
- Airvana claims femto revenue leadership for 2Q11 in Infonetics’ latest survey
- Cavium launches small cell chipset
- NSN and Ubiquisys target China
- Qualcomm recommends Mobile Assisted Range Tuning and other femto interference mitigation techniques
- BelAir announces big plans for small cells
In other news…
- RCR Wireless examines small cells
- UK government to spend £150 million subsidising mobile phone coverage
- Picochip calculates that London needs 70,000 small cells by 2015
- The Guardian reports on small cells
- Steve Brightfield explains how small cells help alleviate the mobile data explosion
- Rob Riordan also believes in small cells
- But France Telecom says it’s mobile offload strategy will be based on Wi-Fi
- Sweden proposes licence exempt spectrum for GSM phones (just like in Holland)
Filed under: Market updates Tagged: | Bouygues, Cosmote, Femtocell, femtocells, SFR, Softbank, Vodafone
