Femtocell market update for week of 22 June 2009 – part 1

Operator news from the Femtocells World Summit
It’s been a big week for femto news on the back of the Femtocells World Summit in London.
Vodafone announces UK consumer femto launch
Vodafone opened the Femtocells World Summit by announcing that the Vodafone Access Gateway will be available in the UK from 1st July.  The device is a standalone [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 18 May 2009

Case for LTE femtocells
Femto Forum chairman Simon Saunders laid out the case for LTE femtocells at the LTE World Summit in Berlin.  In a nutshell, maximising spectrum re-use they will ensure more users receive peak data rates more of the time, especially inside buildings.  “By adopting femtocells operators can roll out a much better performing [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 11 May 2009

There’s not a huge mount of femtocell news this week, but there is quite a lot of news about WiFi, which is seen by many as the main competitor to femtocells for connecting mobile devices to the internet at home.
It’s official – WiFi doesn’t work!
An Ofcom-commissioned report has revealed numerous problems with WiFi performance in [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 26 Jan 2009

Portugal Telecom testing femtocells
Portuguese daily Jornal de Negocios reports that Portugal Telecom is testing femtocells for use by its own residential and business ADSL subscribers, but the business model is not yet defined.
AT&T 3G femtocell sighted
Details of a 3G femtocell appeared briefly on the AT&T website last week.  The web page has subsequently been taken [...]

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 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 8 September 2008

Softbank femtocell deployment
Unstrung reports that Softbank Mobile in Japan has installed 20,000 femtocells from NEC / Ubiquisys, and that it is also checking out equipment from Huawei.  But there are, apparently, still some technical and regulatory issues standing in the way of mass market deployment.
Orange goes for 3G UMA
Orange is upgrading its “Unik” dual mode [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 9 June 2008

Will SFR be first with femtocells in Europe?
“Sources” said this week that SFR will put femtocells on sale in France before the end the year.  One factor driving SFR is Orange’s “Unik” dual-mode FMC service, which offers a similar customer proposition to femtocells albeit with different technology.  Another is SFR’s acquisition of Neuf Cegetel, France’s [...]

Market update for week of 12 May

Was Airave Sprint’s second choice?
This article makes the interesting assertion that Sprint originally planned to roll out a WiFi dual mode service, but switched to femtocells after the launch of HotSpot@Home by T-Mobile. The author argues that femto was therefore Sprint’s second choice, but it looks to me as though the headline should read [...]

Market update for week of 14 Apr 2008

Why do we need 4G femtocells?
This week’s LTE patent agreement amongst some of the major infrastructure suppliers has sparked some interest in 4G femtocells. LTE promises data rates of up to 120 Mbps per base station sector, shared between all users. In principle, LTE-enabled femtocells could offer the full speed to a single [...]

Market update for week of 10 Mar 2008

Softbank to launch femtocells in October
Softbank’s femtocell launch is being planned for October. Interestingly, they have been using in-home repeaters to test the concept, which suggests a basic coverage proposition – repeaters don’t provide any of the other, more interesting benefits that femtocells offer (private cell capacity for the home, homezone discounts, femtozone services…).
Softbank [...]

Market update for week of 3 Mar 2008

Vodafone says it could launch a commercial femtocell service this year
At its Technology Update conference in London this week, Vodafone said it is aggressively pushing femtocell development because it sees the potential to cut costs in its 3G macro network deployments. “We intend to use the technology to reduce macro capex spend by up [...]