We all know that cell phone usage at home continues to surge while landline usage is declining. With more functions and features continuously being added to this gadget, its role is also changing accordingly. Consumers, consequently, are migrating from 2G to 3G handsets. And home users are doing alot more than simply making or receiving calls. Thus, to ensure that communications in the home environment are of quality with reliable service, we are now looking at an emerging technology: the femtocell. Also known as the 3G access point (AP), the femtocell is slowly but surely making inroads into our homes. In reality, a femtocell is a low-cost, low-power cellular base station that provides improved indoor coverage while backhauling the cellular traffic over a broadband connection. Back-haul will come via the consumer's DSL or cable/fiber-optic TV broadband connection.

Femtocells are designed to work with existing mobile handsets and can support multiple users in a home environment. By routing wireless calls through a home broadband connection, these home APs can guarantee connection with voice quality. And at the same time save the consumer cell phone minutes. Plus, it can also be part of a combination of cell phone base station and Wi-Fi home networking router, thus, serving dual purposes. In reality, femtocells offer network carriers the opportunity to offload a lot of the traffic from their network assets to subscriber home-based cells that are backhauled through the IP core.

In fact, the femtocell recently took the first step toward realizing its considerable potential when ip.access announced a frame contract win with Orascom for the use of ip.access picocell and femtocell products in all of its subsidiaries. Now, unlike femtocell, picocell covers a larger area and permits more users per unit. While femtocell may allow four to five users per unit, a picocell can support 125 or more users per unit. This comes at a time when trials are gathering momentum. In a study titled “Femtocell Market Challenges and Opportunities,” the market research firm ABI Research has identified notable carriers like SFR, France Telecom, and SoftBank to have begun serious trials that are expected to quickly move beyond proof of concept and the lab.

According to ABI Research's wireless research director Stuart Carlaw, “Current trials will be fundamental in helping the industry move to a common technological approach, finally putting to bed some of the overexaggerated claims on interference and macro network disruption.”

The research firm's report forecasts that femtocells will reach 36.3 million units per annum by 2012 after its introduction in 2008, accounting for 67.5 million cumulative shipments over that period. By that account, there will be some 151 million femtocell users by 2012.

While many experts in our industry have pointed out the challenges presented by interference, cost, management, and business, there are, however, other issues like intellectual property right (IPR), net neutrality, broadband connection quality, and health that must be addressed before it can make any mark on the home front. And, above all, standardization is needed. “Some form of standardization or common drive toward a unified goal would be beneficial to total market conditions,” noted Carlaw. “Fragmented technology markets with low associated volumes do not make cost optimization an easy task.”

Toward that goal, Femto Forum (www.femtoforum.org) has been set up to promote the widescale adoption and standardization of femtocells. Founding members include Airvana, ip.access, NETGEAR, picoChip, RadioFrame, Tatara and Ubiquisys. “The most successful mobile technologies have always been founded on vigorous open standards, interoperability and a keen understanding of consumer demand,” said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum.

According to Saunders, “The forum is committed to securing these conditions and working with major stakeholders to ensure successful and timely femtocell deployment worldwide.”

Field trials in the United States, Europe and Asia are under way. But, for ultimate success, standards must be in place much sooner. And unit cost and service must be affordable to consumers.

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