On The Cutting Edge — Femto-Cells - Next Generation Home Base Stations


The Motorola 8000 Series Femtocell Access Point extends 3G coverage indoors via the home broadband connection, while allowing service providers to reduce operational costs by offloading the macro network. This product is suitable for connecting to a standard home broadband modem.

In late 2007 the mobile industry reached a very important landmark - 50% market penetration or about 3.3 billion handsets in use around the world. But against this positive news, there were discouraging reports about issues at the networks. A whopping 70% of calls originated indoors and indoor wireless coverage was getting worse. Complaints mounted, highlighting the fact that consumers needed a better indoor experience when using mobile hardware. If only there was a way to leverage existing broadband connections to enhance mobile connections inside the home or office.

Meet the femtocell.

More commonly known as the home base station, a femtocell creates that broadband - mobile network interface. Using a simple appliance similar to a wireless router, femtocell technology brings the promise of more consistent mobile connections using a technology native to existing mobile hardware.

As with any emerging technology, wide adoption of even the idea of femtocells will depend on standards to ensure interoperability and broad appeal. Organizers of the Femto Forum have taken the initiative to establish these standards.

Of course, Motorola has not been sitting on the sidelines. As a longtime frontrunner in innovation and emerging technologies, Motorola has made the case for, and has committed to bringing consumer femtocell solutions to market.

Competition and Convergence

If the current trends are any indication, the consumer, fixed-line, and wireless markets are all headed for a collision right in the middle of your home.

  • Consumers - The fixed wireline market has been flat and consumers are switching to more competitively priced wireless service as a replacement. These days, most people buy their first mobile phone many years prior to establishing fixed-wire service - if they get fixed-wire at all.
  • Fixed-Line Carriers - Fixed-line carriers and DSL service providers have counterattacked by offering new products centered on Fixed-Mobile Convergence - utilizing wireless access technology to capture mobile users when at home, and to divert their mobile originated voice and data calls to the fixed-line network, as in VoIP.
  • Mobile Operators - Base Stations offered by mobile operators can compete directly with home access solutions that rely on other types of access technology such as WiFi or WiMAX. But while low cost mobile handsets are widely available and could use the technology now, dual mode handsets with WiFi/WiMAX capabilities are expensive and still limited in variety.

Femtocell as a Solution

Femotcells could be called a "convergent" solution. In the near future, consumers will likely go to one provider for all their communications/entertainment services: cellular, broadband networks, and television. This bundling of services is already happening on a global level.

  • Orange in the UK has started offering DSL service bundled with mobile contracts.
  • Virgin has started to specialize in "quad play" service, bringing television, telephony, Internet, and cellular service to consumers in one package.
  • AT&T has followed suit in the US, providing television, telephony, Internet and cellular.

For these kinds of convergent business models, femtocells can be an ideal solution - expanding coverage for customers in the places they spend the most time. And with growing convergence in service offerings, people are beginning to pay attention to the idea. ABI Research has predicted that there could be 100 million base stations within homes in the next five years.

Femtocell as a Technology

For a basic nuts-and-bolts overview, let's take a look at how the femtocell technology all comes together:

A small appliance (known as customer premises equipment or "CPE") is connected inside the home. The CPE does the following:

  • Communicates wirelessly with nearby mobile phones, much like a local cellular broadcast tower.
  • Connects to an existing broadband connection through the CPE's back end.

As the consumer initiates a call from within range of the CPE, the CPE picks up the signal and routes the call through the broadband backhaul. Once the consumer steps out of the house, the call is handed over to the external base stations operated by the mobile carriers.

Femtocell as a Challenge

Femtocell technology will enable mobile operators to offer creative and disruptive services in direct competition with fixed-line service. Once in the home, femtocell is likely to encourage end users to use their mobile handset as their sole communications device because it operates smoothly in transition between locations. Femtocell solutions are also likely to increase minutes of use and average revenues per user and also likely to open up brand-new revenue streams.

However, femtocell solutions will face fierce competition as well:

  • Mobile phones with built in WLAN will become more affordable as availability increases.
  • Mobile operators are starting to buy DSL assets or resell DSL. Once the operators find the right business strategy for DSL, femtocell solutions will face stiff competition from existing WiFi networks.

So What?

So, why am I writing about this? What do femtocell solutions have to do with application developers? It's all about the hardware, right?

Yes and no. On the surface, this all seems like a new gadget for home utilities only, no more accessible to software developers than the electrical outlet. But with the advent of technologies like femtocells, barriers between peripherally related technologies tend to dissolve.

Just 10 years ago, playing music from your PC involved shuffling compact discs through the player. Now, software is ushering the compact disc out of existence as quickly as it came in by leveraging the gains in network infrastructure and nearly limitless storage.

Similarly, femtocell solutions will allow application developers to link hardware in ways consumers will be clamoring for. Consider DLNA. Imagine being able to offer consumers the ability to connect media gathered using a handset with the networked PCs in their homes - all courtesy of femtocell technology. And that's just the most obvious barrier-dissolving use. Creative developers will figure out numerous ways to use femtocell solutions to break down the barriers between hardware, creating a springboard for software that greatly enhances the consumer's mobile, tethered, and desktop experience.

– Asokan Thiyagarajan, Motorola Technology Evangelist

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