Invasion of the pico-cells

Stuart Corner
Monday, 05 February 2007 09:24

Business IT - Networking

"Integration with core network infrastructure is also critical, yet there's uncertainty about how best to achieve this," said Brown. "There's a desire to move as fast as possible towards a flat all-IP architecture using IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) applications for cross-network call control, but operators are also evaluating alternative mechanisms, such as Iub over IP or Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA)/Generic Access Network (GAN), as interim approaches."

It reported that :" Vendors say femto cells could sell for $US100 by the end of 2008," and concluded that "The price is attainable, but the timeline is not: $US200 to $US300 is more realistic."

The report said that ' Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, and Samsung have the most advanced femto development programs of major equipment vendors. Huawei, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, and ZTE will likely work with OEM partners.

Very similar conclusions were reached in a report last August  from ABI Research. It concluded that femtocells would be adopted by mobile operators with great enthusiasm. It forecast that, by 2011 there would be 102 million users of femtocell products on 32 million access points worldwide.

The research company said operators would embrace femtocells because of "greater network efficiency, reduced churn, better in-building wireless coverage and the abilities to shape subscriber data usage patterns and to build platforms upon which fixed-mobile convergence services can be realised."