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 16 Mar 2009

Infonetics says femtocells will thrive despite the recession
The latest report from Infonetics Research forecasts sales of femtocell and FMC network equipment will grow at a healthy rate through the economic downturn and then will really take off in 2011, hitting $8 billion in 2013.  According to the report’s authors, some operators are seeing the economic [...]

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 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 30 June 2008

Rumours of Airave nationwide deployment
Engadget reports that Sprint’s Airave (CDMA-1X) femtocell will be on sale across the USA from July 15th for $99. The comments on this page reveal some interesting consumer reaction to the product – albeit from a fairly technical audience. Business Week also reports the news, and concludes “for consumers [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 16 June 2008

RadioFrame Slams Kineto Claims
RFN clearly couldn’t stand back and watch Kineto spinning up a victory story in the femtocell standards battle.  Some strong language in this Unstrung interview with RFN’s GM EMEA Mark Keenan (who is also a Femto Forum board member).  This will make the upcoming Femto Forum gathering even more lively than usual.
Dean [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 2 June

Good progress towards femtocell standardisation
The headlines this week give the impression that a new femtocell standard has been agreed.  This is something of an overstatement, but there has been a lot of encouraging progress recently in 3GPP and the Femto Forum, and consensus is now building around a framework for the standard.
For example, it has [...]

Market update for week of 11 Feb 2008 (Mobile World Congress week)

Operator femtocell trial announcements
O2 announced femtocell trials in the UK. Their current lab trial will be extended to 500 UK users in the summer, and O2 hopes to launch femtocells commercially in 2009. The business case is about adding extra capacity to the O2 network to cope with explosive data growth caused by [...]

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 [...]