In-building technology to unleash potential of 3G phone… 

Home femtocells are allowing mobile operators to deliver a personal 3G signal that will unleash the full potential of the latest phones, according to a new briefing paper from femtocell developer ip.access. According to the company the combination of voice quality delivered, higher data speeds and longer battery life, together with simple connectivity and lower costs, means that femtocells are now set to enable the very best user experience, in the process positioning 3G phones to become the hub of in-home entertainment and Internet connectivity.

The ip.access briefing paper – ‘Introducing 3G femtocells successfully to the home’* –  explores how  mobile operators can create new femtocell-based offerings that will radically change the way that customers use a mobile phone at home. It draws on ip.access' experience in deploying capacity and coverage solutions for leading operators, and provides guidance on how best to sell and deploy femtocells in the home environment. Key topic areas covered include: typical customer usage profiles and end user benefits; adoption ‘sweetspots’; next generation ‘Connected Home' femtocell applications; operator service benefits and business cases; industry analyst viewpoints; and technical implementation success factors.

“Femtocells provide so much more than simply a better signal indoors. Families can benefit from streamlined and money-saving in-home data and voice packages, while the technical and social connectivity provided by femtozone services unlocks new possibilities to make the mobile phone the key interface to home entertainment - both online and offline,” asserts Dr Andy Tiller, vp Marketing for ip.access and author of the briefing paper.

And in other recent developments that illustrate accelerating industry engagement with femtocell technology:
  ·         Airvana has entered into an agreement with Hitachi Communication Technologies Ltd to create and deliver customised versions of Airvana Femtocell products to inter-work with Hitachi Com core network products for the Japanese market
·         Sprint has expanded the availability in the USA of its Samsung-supplied AIRAVE femtocell service
·         NEC Europe has established a strategic partnership with service management solutions provider Motive that will see Motive software integrated into NEC's Femtocell Access Point Management System
·         Engineers from Agilent, picoChip and mimoOn successfully tested a 3GPP LTE femtocell reference design using Agilent's MXA signal analyzer VSA test solutions
·         Semiconductor design IP company MIPS announced that fabless semiconductor startup Percello had licensed its 24Kc high-performance processor core for next-generation femtocell basestation applications
·         Alcatel-Lucent and Airvana are to develop an integrated solution – incorporating IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and CDMA/EV-DO femtocell technology - to support more effective delivery of mobile voice and multimedia services inside buildings
John Williamson
*The briefing paper is now available for download from the ip.access website:
http://www.ipaccess.com/femtocells/femtocells_into_home.php