Femtocells: The Next Big Thing or This Year’s Model?

Femotocells have been among the hot technologies being discussed in telecom circles in recent months. But with all the discussion and ink they’ve received over the past year or two, folks are now beginning to wonder whether femtocell technology is the next big thing or just another technology that generated lots of hype but never met its promise.

Femtocells, which effectively are mini cellular base stations, can be located within buildings to address the fact that the majority of wireless calls are now made within buildings. In addition to improving in-building coverage, putting a femtocell into a home or other building backhaul free, because it then can be done over the home’s DSL link, bringing mobile bandwidth up to 3mbps to 5mbps.

Another selling point of femtocell technology is that, unlike dual-mode phone technology, going the in-home femtocell route doesn’t require subscribers to get new mobile phones and involve complicated handoffs between the cellular and Wi-Fi networks. The requirement to replace the handset for dual-mode functionality is a significant adoption barrier, according to some.

Still, some in the industry are now pointing out that the femtocell discussion – like all debates about technology – needs to go beyond what is workable from an infrastructure standpoint to also consider what kind of pricing, marketing and service functionality service providers need to create around it in order for it to be successful in the marketplace.

Another issue around femtocell technology is interoperability. The Femto Forum, an independent industry association created last year, is working to harmonize the integration of femtocells into mobile core networks. At the Femto Forum's plenary this month, a variety of approaches to femtocell network integration are being put forward by members.

The Forum has already agreed a reference architecture which will be used to provide a consistent basis for comparison between the different network integration options. Among the forum’s members are 2Wire Inc., Acme Packet, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, AudioCodes, BT, Cellcom Israel, Cisco, Comcast, Ericsson, Genband, Huawei, KTL, mobilkom austria, NewStep Networks, Nokia Siemens Networks, NXP Semiconductors, PCCW Ltd., Rogers, Samsung, SaskTel, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia and Vodafone.

While that’s all being worked out, the vendor community continues to hawk femtocell solutions. For example, Motorola at CTIA next week will demo its CDMA femtocell solution. In addition to that, Motorola offers 3G UMTS femotcell CPE, which it announced earlier this year.

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