Many factors are converging to create a market ripe for femtocell technology, says a new report from analyst firm Infonetics Research. Chief among these factors:
Femtocell access points are deployed within a home or in-building to enhance the signal coverage of GSM/GPRS, CDMA, or 3G macrocellular base stations. Femtocell access points backhaul mobile traffic over an IP network connection (typically a DSL line), and could significantly reduce operational costs for mobile operators, as well as reduced customer churn, the report says.
"There's great potential for the femtocell access point market because they meet 2 very important needs of mobile operators: they're a less expensive way to backhaul network traffic, and they provide more consistent coverage and Internet speeds indoors, which is increasingly important for bandwidth-sensitive applications. Still, there are tough hurdles the market needs to overcome. Femtocells are an unproven business model and lack standardization, which could inhibit adoption in the short term. There are also technical challenges to overcome, including interference, scalability, and management issues, and the cost to end-users, which likely won't drop below $100 per unit until 2009 or 2010," said Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, WiFi and mobile at Infonetics Research.
Other highlights from the report:
Posted to the site on 22nd April 2008
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