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 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 3

Some brief notes on other announcements from last week…
Femtocell Industry Awards 2009

The winners of the Femto Forum’s inaugural Femtocell Industry Awards were announced at a dazzling gala dinner.  ip.access picked up awards for the nano3G picocell / enterprise femtocell (in the design and technology innovation category) and for our Facebook virtual fridge notes demo (in [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 15 June 2009

First Iu-h demo
picoChip, Starent and Continuous Computing are set to show the world’s first demonstration of the new 3GPP Iu-h standard.  picoChip is supplying the femtocell silicon and PHY software for the Access Point, Continuous Computing is supplying the femto software stacks for the AP and Starent is supplying the femto gateway.  The demo will [...]

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 19 Jan 2009

Verizon launches “Wireless Network Extender” femtocell
(Website ¦ FAQ ¦ User manual)
As predicted by Engadget, Verizon has begun selling its femtocell in stores and online.  It uses the same system as Sprint’s AIRAVE, based on the Samsung UbiCell.  Here are the highlights:

Voice and CDMA 1X data only (no EV-DO)
Up to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 17 November 2008

KTF working on femtocells
KTF, Korea’s second largest mobile operator, has announced that it is collaborating with Huawei on the development of femtocells (presumably WCDMA).
Pictures of SFR’s femtocell
This article in French says that SFR is still experimenting with femtocells, and shows a picture of an SFR branded femtocell (Ubiquisys flavour) plugged into [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 10 November 2008

Mobilkom announces femtocell trials
Austrian operator Mobilkom has said that it is piloting 35 residential and business femtocells from Huawei.  The pilot project will run until the second quarter of 2009, with the final product offering to be launched in the first half of next year.
SoftBank – as you were
Tetsuzo Matsumoto, Chief Strategy Officer for SoftBank [...]

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 [...]