Las Vegas – The Femto Forum, an industry association
that promotes the development and deployment of femtocell worldwide, held its
first press conference, and highlighted the growing market potential for this
technology.
Currently nine mobile operators are using this technology
worldwide, and Professor Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum,
emphasized the potential for consumers, “we see this as complementary with
Wi-Fi.”
Femtocells are poised to be a low-cost, easy-to-install
cellular point for homes, and already seeing support in the 3G and eme.ng 4G
standards by 3GPP, 3GPP2, WiMAX Forum and Broadband Forum. Saunders added, “You
can take your existing services and integrate it with your home network.”
Femtocells are essentially plug-and-play wireless access
points that connect standard mobile devices to a mobile network through
broadband connections. This technology would also work with existing 3G
handsets, and just as importantly allow for a seamless transition to cellular towers.
Service is handed off as you move out of range and into a public space. The
service has the added benefit of reducing carrier loads, which have increased
as consumers send and receive data via mobile smartphones.
Forum member Andy Tiller of ip.access says that one
advantage of femtocells is that this technology could off load the cellular
networks, and help to not overload the 3G networks. “It relieves the data
traffic for indoor uses.”
Additionally, Rupert Baines of picoChips stressed that the
data transmitted by mobile wouldn’t overload broadband either. “In wireless
this is a huge amount of traffic, but it is not a lot of traffic for broadband.
It is not a dramatic loading for the broadband providers, but it is a dramatic
saving for the wireless carrier. Femtocells are a way to help those carriers
handle the traffic.”
