Unwired looking to put WiMAX base stations in the home

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 07 November 2007 12:01

Business IT - Networking

Femtocells have largely been touted to date as micro-cellular base stations for installation in customer premises but Unwired Australia anticipates equivalent technology becoming available for its future WiMAX network. Unwired has just become the first Australian member of the Femto Forum,   a recently formed independent industry association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide. Its web site describes femtocells as being exclusively a technology for cellular networks. However, Unwired CTO, Eric Hamilton, told iTWire: "there is no reason why they cannot be used with WiMAX." He added that WiMAX had recently been accepted by the ITU into the same family of standards as 3G and other cellular technologies.

Hamilton said: "we are always looking at ways we can improve indoor coverage." However, while 3G femtocells are now on the verge of commercial availability, their WiMAX equivalent is much less developed.

Hamilton said Unwired had held discussion on WiMAX femtocell technologies with a number of vendors, all under non-disclosure agreements and he would not name any company that has publicly stated its involvement in the technology. Nor was he prepared to give any indication as to when he anticipated  WiMAX femtocells becoming available.

The operator of what will be the world's largest WiMAX network, Sprint Nextel in the US also has similar plans. US web site, Unstrung, reported in April that "Sprint has an RFP out for what it calls 'low cost internet base stations' but most others in the industry call home base stations or 'femtocells'.... Sprint has already made it clear that it anticipates that in-building coverage will be an important aspect of its WiMax rollout." And it quoted a spokesman as saying "femtocells are on our radar."

Unstrung added that "Indoor wireless specialist RadioFrame Networks has been upfront in its plans to bring a WiMax home base station to market. Its own analyst named AirWalk Communications, Airvana and Samsung as all being be in the running because all are established in the CDMA business. RadioFrame an Airvana were  subsequently founding members of the Femto Forum in July 2007.