femtocell

Femtocell and Small Cell is touted as an ideal solution for cutting mobile costs and boosting indoor network coverage. For mobile devices, it promises to offers faster data connections and fewer dropped calls, and improved mobile voice quality. Despites their benefits these devices have show slow take up from residential and small businesses. However, according to a report titled “Small Cells and Femtocells Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2013 to 2019”, this is about the change.

Femtocell is not a technology many of us talk about neither do we hear about it often; however, the solution is slowly gaining popularity among the masses as an alternative to other in-home wireless technologies.  In 2013 the global femtocell market was worth approximately US $304.8 Million; by 2020, this amount is expected to reach US $ 3.7 Billion, according to Allied Market Research.

Today the world received its first dual mode femtocell or small-cell base station supporting both 3G and LTE simultaneously.  Developed by NTT DOCOMO, the new femtocell units will make it even easier for homes in mobile signal dead spot to remain connected.

The Femtocell device is plug-and-play and provides 3G/LTE service coverage in a range of up to a long distance, depending on actual conditions. It automatically configures itself upon connection to the surrounding devices in its surroundings.

Affinegy has made a strategic move to acquire the Sagemcom’s TR-069 ACS (Auto Configuration Servers) Solutions Business. According to Affinegy the acquisition has allowed it to expand its product range with Sagemcom’s TR-069 ACS Subscriber Manager and FrontLine, which are now part of Affinegy’s Portal Platform. They have also gained more customers in Europe, Asia, Central/South America Africa and Japan.

Netgear today announced the release of its MF100H Second generation Femtocell device. The MF100H is a new addition to the Netgear’s range of home networking solutions and mobile portfolio.  According to Netgear the MF100H complements the current NETGEAR broadband gateway and router lineup widely used by Cable TV Multiple Systems Operators (MSOs) and Telco broadband service providers for residential and business customers.

Anadigics has introduced a new WiMAX power amplifier solution for femtocells and other residential equipment, called the AWB7230.  According to Anadigics the AWB7230 chip covers the full 3.3 GHz to 3.8 GHz band and supports 3.5 GHz WiMAX networks worldwide, and also provides the highest level of power efficiency available for such applications.

In a move to strengthen its local presence and support for Indian mobile operators, NEC Corporation announced that it will be collaborating with Aricent as a service partner to support the deployment of its market-leading 3G Femtocell solution for operators in India.

Alcatel-lucent and Etisalat have teamed up to deploy the UAE’s (United Arab Emirates) first femtocall project. The project is to enhance the quality of mobile broadband connectivity for people living in remote areas of the UAE, and increase mobile bandwidth for high traffic areas.  According to Estisalat, femtocell has the potential to support the increase growth in data usage and consumption of data services.

Vodafone has added Greece to it list of countries using its residential Femtocell service.  With this launch Vodafone now has Femtocell commercial services in four countries: Spain, UK, Qatar and now Greece – only the UK and Greece are residential.  The service, which uses the Vodafone Access Gateway brand, rather than Sure Signal, is being provided for free or with a discount to postpaid subscribers.

According to The Register, SoftBank Mobile of Japan is offering free ADSL and free femtocell to anyone who will let SoftBank install a femtocell in their home or business, but customers will still have pay for mobile calls.  The free femtocells on offer are made by Ubiquisys and are back by Google.