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| Friday, 20 April 2007 | |
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Multi-standard will dominate ‘smaller-than-picocell’ market. One broadband solutions provider seems to have the message…
Life as a supplier of femtocell technology ain’t easy. According to ABI Research, publisher of the ‘Femtocell Access Point’ report, femtocell vendors must drive costs down while meeting carrier-driven requirements for products in a market where there are no firm ideas about what a femtocell is, and what a femtocell system needs to support. As a result, deduces ABI, manufacturers will look to add multimode functionality in order to reach a point where economies of scale can contribute to lowering costs. The research company believes that multimode femtocells could represent 86% of the global market for the technology by 2011. “Recent femtocell RFP activity shows a wide variety of product demands being voiced by carriers, ranging from simple stand-alone products through to products that integrate multiple cellular standards, ADSL gateways, multiple transport layer technologies and Wi-Fi,” points out ABI Research wireless research director Stuart Carlaw. “Multimodal products allow OEMs to target multiple carriers with the same platform, while semiconductor vendors will find it difficult to produce reference designs and drive down silicon costs without the economies of scale that stem from a common notion of what a femtocell system should incorporate.”
ABI Research also advocates further standardisation of the femtocell, and notes that standardisation work is currently being considered in the 3GPP, where femtocells are being explored as an extension to current standards. Such efforts will be key to moving the market forward. Moreover, says Carlaw: “An industry-driven body that unites the elements of the ecosystem under a common set of guidelines and goals would be warmly welcomed.”
In advance of that, though, mobile broadband infrastructure supplier Axiom Wireless seems to have taken onboard the multimode femtocell idea, having just launched its One Phone Service Enabler product family. This presently includes the ACF-400 switch and two femtocells: the A-Pro2100 for WCDMA (HSPA) and the A-Pro3500 WiMAX. According to chip maker picoChip that supplies the DSP and software reference design for the new products, the last named is the first WiMAX femtocell, and the software overall used is the first femtocell architecture expressly designed to integrate different wireless standards, starting with these but adding more.
“We have designed our system to easily integrate with carriers’ networks, no matter which standard they use, and are launching with the two fastest growing wireless protocols. The flexibility of picoChip in supporting different standards was a major attraction”, reports Axiom Wireless founder and ceo Jake Han.
“picoChip is pleased to add Axiom Wireless to a list of highly capable companies that have chosen our solutions for the femtocell market”, adds Guillaume d’Eyssautier, president and ceo of picoChip. “Axiom’s innovative architecture and control platform allows it to easily support many standards, increasingly necessary as carriers move to a mix of protocols.”
John Williamson |
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