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 5 October 2009

AT&T expands 3G MicroCell availability
According to AT&T’s website, the 3G MicroCell is now available in Atlanta (29 stores) and Columbia (3 stores).  This follows last week’s launch in Raleigh (11 stores) and the original market of Charlotte NC (19 stores), making 62 stores in total.  One delighted customer commented, “Holy crap – AT&T 3g Microcell [...]

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 + iPhone 3G + Facebook = fridge notes

Here’s Mobile Europe’s video of ip.access’ Femtocell Industry Award winning ‘virtual fridge notes’ demo, shown at last week’s Femtocells World Summit in London.
More Mobile Europe videos from the event can be found here.

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 [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 1 June 2009

AIRAVE economics
Here’s how one Sprint subscriber calculates the value of his AIRAVE femtocell:
“It was costing us $32 per month for our unlimited long distance land line and it would cost us an additional $25 per month to have the AIRAVE.  So we are saving $7 per month with the AIRAVE, with the added bonus of [...]

A humble boy with cleverness and drive ;-)

From the Tuesday 19 May edition of the Cambridge News (this is not a spoof!).

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 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 [...]

Femtocells – size does matter

In response to the Femto Forum’s “Greater Femto” initiative, operators are experimenting with a number of new concept designs aimed at taking femtocells outside the home and into offices and public areas.
Vodafone’s Teddy Graham has been a long-time advocate of the metro-femtocell, which can be attached to street furniture to improve local area coverage [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 23 Mar 2009

Femtocells 5x faster than the macro network
Based on side-by-side testing, Airvana says its HubBubTM femtocell provides EVDO data speeds consistently five times faster than the existing wireless macro network inside homes.  The company has carried out statistically meaningful tests of femtocell performance in a variety of environments as part of an operator trial, and will [...]