Femtocell market update for week of 16 November 2009

SFR to launch ‘Home 3G’ femtocell
Adverts for SFR’s Home 3G femtocell have appeared on the Internet.  It’s a standalone femtocell that will work with any ISP.  The price is ­­free with a 24-month contract, €5 per month for 12-month commitment or €199 to buy the box outright.  Like the Vodafone Access Gateway, Home 3G is [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 26 October 2009

China Unicom launches “3G Inn” femtocell
According to an announcement in Chinese (translation here), China Unicom has launched a commercial 3G femtocell service targeted at “high end” consumers.  The so-called “3G Inn” service requires a 2 Mbps residential broadband connection, and is available for a monthly fee.  With a mere 140 million subscribers, China Unicom [...]

AT&T launches 3G femtocell in Charlotte N.C.

AT&T tried to start selling its new 3G femtocell quietly via its retail stores in one city this week, releasing details about the device on a new 3G Microcell website.  But despite the low-key launch there was an immediate hailstorm of coverage in the blogosphere / twitterverse and in the mainstream telecoms press.  AT&T’s 3G [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 14 September 2009

A ‘growing divide’ on 4G femtocells?
Fierce Wireless reports “a growing divide between those who believe femtocells and picocells are necessary in 4G coverage and those that don’t”.
In the Pro camp we find Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow, who used his talk at this week’s 4G World conference to urge network equipment vendors to focus on picocells, [...]

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 31 August 2009

Vodafone publishes indoor 3G coverage maps
Vodafone has published new 3G coverage maps for the UK, for the first time showing both indoor and outdoor coverage.  From a glance at the maps it’s obvious that indoor coverage is very poor in many areas.  (In practice the situation may be even worse than the maps show – [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 24 August 2009

Wall Street Journal covers femtocells
A WSJ article this week (full text here) points out that “carriers are reluctant to talk about coverage problems…making femtocells a tough product to market to consumers”.  However, Kevin Packingham, senior VP of product development for Sprint, is quoted as saying “advertising will ramp up with next-generation femtocells since it [...]

Femtocell market update for weeks of 29 June & 6 July 2009

Following a reprimand this afternoon from Femto Forum chairman Simon Saunders , here’s an attempt to catch up with the last two weeks…
DoCoMo to launch HSPA femtocell later this year
Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo has given its femtocell an upgrade (pic), with plug’n’play provisioning and HSPA for faster data connections.  Interestingly, DoCoMo says the new [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 22 June 2009 – part 1

Operator news from the Femtocells World Summit
It’s been a big week for femto news on the back of the Femtocells World Summit in London.
Vodafone announces UK consumer femto launch
Vodafone opened the Femtocells World Summit by announcing that the Vodafone Access Gateway will be available in the UK from 1st July.  The device is a standalone [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 25 May 2009

Have we lost interest in 3G femtocells?
Last week’s press coverage from the LTE World Summit has caused some speculation that the industry has abandoned 3G femtocells.  For example, IridiaBlog comments, “we have seen some announcements that would seem to point towards femtocells becoming part of LTE deployment rather than trying to make them an adjunct [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 11 May 2009

There’s not a huge mount of femtocell news this week, but there is quite a lot of news about WiFi, which is seen by many as the main competitor to femtocells for connecting mobile devices to the internet at home.
It’s official – WiFi doesn’t work!
An Ofcom-commissioned report has revealed numerous problems with WiFi performance in [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 20 Apr 2009

Vodafone explores metro femto
Vodafone has been experimenting with outdoor deployment of LTE metro femtocells.  The company’s head of new technologies and innovation Andy Dunkin says that the concept is strong, but requires a low cost solution for wireless backhaul at 50-100 Mbps.
Femtocells and the consumer electronics industry
Fierce Wireless wonders whether femtocells could bring the large [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 13 Apr 2009

Femto Forum & SRG publish comprehensive femtocell business case paper
The full business case white paper from Signals Research Group is now available on the Femto Forum website.  It’s hard to sum up all 80 pages in a simple soundbite, but here’s how some of the telecoms press did it…

Telecoms.com says it “appears to be the [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 6 Apr 2009

Femtocell standard published
The Femto Forum, 3GPP and the Broadband Forum have announced that the world’s first femtocell standard has been officially published by 3GPP.  The new Iu-h standard covers network architecture, radio and interference aspects, provisioning and security, and forms part of 3GPP’s Release 8 specification.  Femtocell management and provisioning are standardised via extensions to [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 9 Mar 2009

AT&T includes femtocells in major 3G investment plan
This week AT&T announced plans to invest around $12 billion in its broadband networks (wireless and wired) in 2009.  As well as adding 2,100 new cell sites across the US, AT&T also highlighted “customer trials leading toward general availability of AT&T 3G MicroCell offerings, which utilize femtocells and [...]