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 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 week of 8 June 2009

Sprint offers its femtocell to MVNO and cable partners
Sprint has announced that it will white-label its AIRAVE femtocell, enabling wholesale partners to offer their own branded CDMA femtocell services.  This includes MVNOs (such as Virgin Mobile USA), as well as wireline and cable operators.
“The femtocell offering is not only a differentiator in the marketplace [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 16 Feb 2009

(Also see here for the week’s operator femtocell news.)
Qualcomm announces femto chipsets
Up until now, the major silicon suppliers have held back from developing femto-specific chipsets, so Qualcomm’s announcement is a significant endorsement for the industry. The company says it will offer HSPA+ and CDMA2000 ‘Femtocell Station Modem’ chipsets, including baseband functions, network listen and integrated [...]

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 3 November 2008

AT&T’s CEO of Mobility and Consumer Markets confirms femtocell trials
Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, AT&T’s iPhone chief, Ralph de la Vega, spoke about AT&T’s plans for femtocell market testing in 2009.
T-mobile also confirms femtocell trials
T-Mobile International CTO Joachim Horn says T-Mobile is testing the femtocell user experience in a [...]

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 [...]

Market update for week of 4 Feb 2008

No time for analysis this week, with the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona coming up. Here are the headlines…
ip.access & Mavenir partner for femtozone services
“Together with Mavenir Systems, we are creating a platform for operators to offer a wide range of new mobile phone services for the home. With femtozone services, operators can [...]

Market update for week of 28 Jan 2008

Femto Forum aims to harmonise femto architectures
Today there are more femtocell network architectures than vendors (because some vendors support more than one). Initial femtocell deployments are using proprietary interfaces, but operators are pushing hard for interoperability, which allows them to purchase femtocell CPE from a wide selection of vendors irrespective of their choice of [...]

Market update for week of 21 Jan 2008

TeliaSonera to trial femtocells (is dual mode FMC a dead end?)
TeliaSonera will soon begin femtocell trials in Sweden and another country, and is planning end-user trials in Q3. One interesting aspect of this is that TeliaSonera already has a UMA-based FMC service called “Home Free”. Whereas Orange and T-Mobile US seem comfortable [...]

Cisco & femtocells

Cisco has made a strategic investment in ip.access. This follows recent comments that the company is “keeping an eye on the femtocell home base-station market”. There has been speculation in the past that Cisco is taking an active interest in femtocells, and might make an investment in a femto technology vendor. [...]

Market update for week of 7 Jan 2008

North American CDMA carriers to launch commercial femtocells in 2008
Tom Jasny, Samsung VP of wireless and broadband networks, was bullish about femtocell prospects in comments made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. He says Samsung has completed trials with several North American CDMA operators, and expects nationwide rollouts within the [...]