Unwired joins Femto Forum as first Aussie member

by Stuart Corner

Wednesday, 07 November 2007

Page 1 of 2 ! The Femto Forum, the independent industry association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide and founded in July with just seven members, has quadrupled is membership adding Unwired as its first member from Australia. Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operator's network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections. They are miniature cellular network base stations and as such are fully integrated into and managed as part of the network. Generally access would be restricted to the occupants of the building in which they are located. Unwired does not have any access to cellular spectrum in Australia, so it is hard to see how it could make use of femtocell technology. However its planned WiMAX service could be used to backhaul femtocells into the cellular operator's network. The Forum's new members include a number of major operators and equipment vendors which are already participating in its working groups and who will be represented on the Forum's board: Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks and Telefónica O2. Their joining represents a very significant boost the Forum whose founders were mostly small niche femtocell players. Founding members were: Airvana, ip.access, NetGear, picoChip, RadioFrame, Tatara and Ubiquisys. Other new members are Aricent, Azaire Networks, Bharti Airtel, Bouygues Telecom, Carphone Warehouse Networks, Celcom, Continuous Computing, General Communication Inc, Kineto Wireless, Mapesbury Communications, Mavenir Systems, MobileOne, Motorola, Orascom Telecom, PCCW Mobile HK Limited, Pirelli Broadband Solutions, Rakon, Rogers Wireless, Reef Point, Sagem Communications, SerComm, Sonus Networks, Starent Networks, Thomson, UTStarcom and ZTE Corporation. "Since the launch of the Femto Forum on July 2nd this year, the development of the femtocell industry has continued its unrelenting pace – recently seeing the first commercial deployment. The simple proposition of lower costs, for both operators and consumers, combined with improved coverage and services is proving to be compelling," said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum. << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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