Femtocell market update for week of 23 November 2009

SFR ‘Home 3G’ goes live (website ¦ user guide)
SFR launched its Home 3G femtocell this week.  Like the Vodafone Access Gateway, it’s a standalone femtocell offering improved 3G coverage (but, at least initially, no homezone tariffs or femto services).
Some operators have been reluctant to promote an ‘improved coverage’ proposition (which could be interpreted as an [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 7 September 2009

Telstra CTO wants femtocell apps
Despite having probably the best mobile network in the world (HSPA+ at 850 MHz with “spectacular” indoor coverage), Telstra CTO Hugh Bradlow is interested in femtocells.  He doesn’t want to use them for coverage, which he feels “sends the message that the operator has not built out its network properly”, but [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 20 July 2009

More experiences with the Vodafone Access Gateway
Here are some observations after my first few days with Vodafone’s new femtocell:

Call quality and data speeds are good.
Hand-out from the femtocell to the macro network works fine, even when driving away.
Hand-in doesn’t work.  However, my calls don’t drop when entering the femtozone and walking right up to [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 18 May 2009

Case for LTE femtocells
Femto Forum chairman Simon Saunders laid out the case for LTE femtocells at the LTE World Summit in Berlin.  In a nutshell, maximising spectrum re-use they will ensure more users receive peak data rates more of the time, especially inside buildings.  “By adopting femtocells operators can roll out a much better performing [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 30 Mar 2009

Cellcom picks Starent & AirWalk for CDMA femtocell deployment
Cellcom is planning to roll out CDMA femtocells to its enterprise customers in Wisconsin.  Unlike Sprint and Verizon, both of whom use Samsung’s femtocell solution, Cellcom will use AirWalk’s recently announced EdgePoint PRO femtocell access point (which supports up to 28 simultaneous users) and Starent’s XT30 Femto [...]

Operators give femto updates at MWC 09

Several operators gave updates on their femtocell plans in Barcelona this week, some presenting in the FemtoZone and others in the main conference.
T-Mobile has completed friendly user trials in Germany, Poland, and the UK, and will start controlled consumer femtocell deployments in Germany in the middle of the year.  The trials uncovered some technical problems, [...]

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 [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 13 October 2008

Telefónica O2 prepares new femto trial
Unstrung says that Telefónica O2 Europe is planning a new femtocell consumer trial early next year, and implies that new vendors may be involved.  The article doesn’t say where the trial will be, but it mentions a previously announced UK trial involving NEC and Ubiquisys.  Telefónica O2 has also been [...]

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) [...]

Market update for weeks of 28 Apr & 5 May 2008

StarHub starts femto trial
The Singapore operator is about to start a 6-month consumer trial with 200 customers who take both post-paid mobile and residential broadband services from StarHub.
Telecom Italia Mobile interested in femtocells
Telecom Italia is very interested in deploying femtocells and is in trials with femtocell suppliers, but it wants the cost of femtocell units [...]

Market update for week of 31 Mar 2008

There was a lot of femto noise at CTIA this week in Las Vegas. With the exception of the ip.access / Sonus live demo, and one or two partnership announcements, most of the news was about CDMA femtocells…
Verizon to launch femtocells in 2008
“Our plans are to deploy femtocells in 2008,” said Verizon Wireless CTO, [...]

Market update for weeks of 24 & 31 December 2007

Femtocells featured prominently in the analysts’ of end-of-year reviews and hot technology predictions for 2008. Aside from this, a new Nokia survey provides great validation of our assertion that consumers want mobile data services on their phones at home (despite the presence of the PC and TV), and there are the first signs of [...]