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| Friday, 01 February 2008 | |
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Femtocell fever continues…
Industry sentiment for femtocells – the low power, low cost miniature in-door cell phone base stations – continues to rise. In one new development Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has inked a collaboration agreement with Ubiquisys Ltd to provide mobile network operators with solutions that offer high-quality 3G services at home. In another the Femto Forum pressure group has launched a programme to help harmonise the integration of femtocells into mobile core networks, and announced a raft of new joiners to its membership roster. Under the terms of their agreement NSN and Ubiquisys will cooperate in the marketing and sales of the joint solution to mobile operators worldwide. The Ubiquisys ZoneGate 3G femtocell supports industry standard interfaces and conforms to Nokia Siemens Networks Femto Gateway’s open architecture. “The femtocell market is moving at an astonishing speed and 2008 will undoubtedly prove to be ‘make-up-your-mind’ time for many operators. We are currently involved in 10 trials and expect several to expand into larger deployments later this year,” comments Ubiquisys ceo Chris Gilbert. “We decided long ago to concentrate on the device and then partner with leading SI vendors who share our vision on the femtocell industry.” NSN already has femtocell collaborations with RadioFrame (click), Airvana (click) and Thomson (click). The Femto Forum initiative apparently results from the circumstance that operator demand to launch femtocells quickly has led to the development of many different methods for integrating potentially millions of femtocells into the network core. Although the Forum says this is not holding up the commercial deployment of femtocells, the new programme will help unite these different approaches in the longer term and set the stage for the development of future standards. At the Femto Forum's next plenary in March 2008, a variety of approaches to femtocell network integration will be put forward by members. Synergies between the approaches will be identified and the Femto Forum intends to provide a framework within which consensus can be built around similar approaches. This is designed to enable vendors to respond quickly to operator demands for interoperability, and will provide a platform from which members can advance the best approaches into the relevant standards bodies - the Femto Forum is not itself a standards making body. “Femtocells have got off to a flying start and more deployments will take place in the near future but it is crucial that all the players in the market begin to plan together for the longer term. Operators have been vocal about their desire for a more unified approach to femtocell network integration as the scale of deployments increases. This programme represents the first time the femtocell community has come together to forge a future technology path through consensus,” offers Femto Forum chairman Simon Saunders. “This conjoined approach will not only encourage interoperability and increase economies of scale thereby helping keep costs low, but it will also help to support far-reaching new femtocell applications.” The new Femto Forum members, who are already active in the organisation’s working groups, include: Acme Packet, AudioCodes, BT, Cellcom Israel Ltd, Cisco, Ericsson, GENBAND, Huawei, KTL, mobilkom John Williamson |
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