Femtocell market update for weeks of 7 & 14 December 2009

More details on China Unicom’s 3G Inn femto
Yu Ying Tao, General Manager of China Unicom, has provided further details of his company’s 3G Inn femtocell (for which Huawei has claimed credit).  The device will be available for a “small monthly fee”, while calls and web browsing via the femtocell will not count against the subscriber’s [...]

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 13 Apr 2009

Femto Forum & SRG publish comprehensive femtocell business case paper
The full business case white paper from Signals Research Group is now available on the Femto Forum website.  It’s hard to sum up all 80 pages in a simple soundbite, but here’s how some of the telecoms press did it…

Telecoms.com says it “appears to be the [...]

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 2 Mar 2009

Femtocells won’t feature in Verizon’s initial LTE launch
There has been lots of talk about rolling out LTE networks “from the indoors out”.  Verizon CTO Dick Lynch said last December that Verizon would introduce LTE femtocells shortly after rolling out its LTE network, but this week Verizon confirmed that femtocells are not part of the LTE [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 9 Feb 2009

Femto Forum study finds positive femto business cases – lots of them!
We’ve seen a lot of negative opinion bandied about on the subject of the femtocell business case, and a number of partial reposts.  But a new study from Signals Research Group, commissioned by the Femto Forum, aims to put the issue to bed once [...]

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 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 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 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 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 [...]

Market update for week of 31 Mar 2008

There was a lot of femto noise at CTIA this week in Las Vegas. With the exception of the ip.access / Sonus live demo, and one or two partnership announcements, most of the news was about CDMA femtocells…
Verizon to launch femtocells in 2008
“Our plans are to deploy femtocells in 2008,” said Verizon Wireless CTO, [...]

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. [...]