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 [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 12 Jan 2009

Ubiquisys and Percello announce partnership
Ubiquisys and Percello have announced that they will be integrating Percello’s PRC6000 chip into Ubiquisys’ ZoneGate femtocell.  As an investor in both companies, T-Venture might have had a hand in the matchmaking.
So is Ubiquisys ditching picoChip in favour of Percello?  Well, not exactly.  According to Ubi’s founder and CTO Will Franks, [...]

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 weeks of 20 & 27 October 2008

AT&T announces 3G femtocell trial
AT&T says it will start femtocell trials later this year.  “As the nation’s leading provider of both wireless and broadband, it makes sense that we would examine the potential benefits of femtocells for our customers,” an AT&T spokeswoman said.  “We’re currently doing testing in our labs and a trial is planned [...]

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 6 October 2008

Verizon CTO talks about femtocell plans
Mark Wegleitner revealed some of Verizon’s thinking on femtocells in a recent interview with Telephony Online…
“On femtocells and dual-mode phones: We’re planning for trial of femtocells. Both had obstacles. In one case, the femtocell cost was a problem. In other case, the availability of dual-mode phones was a problem. Both [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 29 September 2008

Maxis plans femtocell trial
Maxis, Malaysia’s leading mobile operator, plans to trial femtocells by year end.  Head of Radio Technologies, Denis Seek Kwai Yin, told the Femtocells Asia 2008 conference in Kuala Lumpur that Maxis is interested in using femtocells to implement home zone tariffs and location tracking services such as intruder alert.
Ericsson & Tatara collaborate [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 22 September 2008

Japan’s SoftBank getting ready to launch 3G femtocells
The big announcement at the “Femtocells Asia 2008″ conference was SoftBank’s plan to launch 10,000 femtocells in Japan from January 2009, which may turn out to be the first commercial 3G femtocell deployment anywhere in the world.  SoftBank CTO, Junichi Miyakawa, presented details of the technical solution from [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 11 August 2008

Airave  reviews mostly positive
More reviews of the Sprint Airave appeared this week, most being very positive on the technology but not so pleased with the pricing. Here’s a selection of quotes…
Engadget says…

“Here’s what it all boils down to – does this unit really make a noticeable improvement in call quality and signal strength? In [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 21 July 2008

Chunghwa Telecom to buy 3000 femtocells
Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom is reported to have put out a tender for 3000 femtocells.  It’s not huge, but it’s indicative of global interest in femtocells.
Indoor performance is holding back mobile broadband
Excitement about the rapid uptake of mobile broadband (accessing the internet from laptops via HSDPA) has led to predictions that [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 23 June 2008

News from the Femtocells Europe 2008 conference in London and the subsequent Femto Forum meeting

The femtocell industry is remarkably friendly. Here’s picoChip’s Rupert Baines (my partner in crime in Working Group 1 at the Femto Forum) with Yoav Volloch and Shlomo Gadot from chip competitor Percello.
Comcast to deploy WiMAX femtocells
Comcast SVP Dave Williams said during [...]

Market update for week of 7 Apr 2008

Dell’Oro femto forecast
Dell’Oro Group forecasts that shipments of femtocells will grow from 170,000 in 2008 to 27.4 million in 2012 (an amazing 356% CAGR). Nearly all these femtocells will be W-CDMA-based. Femto revenues will rise from nearly $50 million in 2008 to over $2.7 billion in 2012. However, the growth will initially [...]

Market update for week of 24 Mar 2008

Forbes says femtocells will cause mobile services price collapse
Hidden in this otherwise reasonably good write-up is the somewhat bizarre claim that “…for carriers, femtocells are as scary a threat as free Wi-Fi”.
Apparently, because they “create a flood of additional capacity at very small cost” they could cause an industrywide price collapse.
Huh?
The Guardian on femtocells
“What [...]

Market update for week of 17 Mar 2008

Ericsson maintains its resistance to 3G femtocells
This time Ericsson is saying that the chips are too expensive, so they won’t build a 3G femtocell before 2009. But analysts believe the real reason for Ericsson’s resistance is the fact that femtocells threaten the vendor’s core macro cellular infrastructure business. “Ericsson welcomes the femtocell [...]

Market update for week of 17 December 2007

RadioFrame partners with NSN
You may remember that Nokia Siemens Networks is promoting a femtocell architecture based on an Iu interface from the Access Point to a gateway connecting to the core network. Rather than building its own Access Point, NSN is encouraging other vendors to build APs for certification against its universal gateway. [...]