Femtocell Market Status Issue. 9 December 2011
Oct 03, 2014
Femtocell Market Status Issue. 9 December 2011
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 2
Purpose of this Document The market status report provides regular updates on the status of femtocell market development as it
pertains to service providers and femtocell ecosystem manufacturers, and also covers standards and
regulatory aspects.
Informa Telecoms & Media is researching and producing this report on behalf of the Femto Forum. The news
and analysis is based largely on news items submitted through the Forum by members and analyst houses,
supplemented by research we have conducted through publicly available websites and sources.
Editorial control remains with Informa Telecoms & Media (see also copyright and acknowledgement sections
at the end of the newsletter). Suggestions for contributions may be submitted to the contact details at the
end of this report.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 3
Latest Market Developments • Having experienced healthy growth during 2011, the femtocell market is now demonstrating it can scale
with multiple deployments that reach well into 100s of thousand units, including Vodafone, Sprint,
AT&T, Softbank and SFR.
• The majority of Tier-‐1 mobile operators worldwide have expressed interest in small cells, particularly for
capacity driven networks including LTE.
• 8 of the top 10 mobile operator groups (by revenue) now offer femtocell services, including AT&T,
France Telecom/Orange, Telefonica, T-‐Mobile/Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone amongst others.
• As of December 2011, there are 37 commercial services (from 31 in June 2011) and a total of 46
deployment commitments (compared to 43 in June 2011). As of December 2011, there have been 7 new
operator deployments since June 2011.
• According to an Informa survey that took place during Q2 2011, 60% of operators believe that small cells
will be more important than macrocells for an effective LTE deployment strategy.
• The Femto Forum has grown to include 66 mobile operators representing 1.99 billion mobile subscribers
worldwide, across multiple wireless technologies (WiMAX, UMTS and CDMA) and account for 34% of
total mobile subscribers worldwide plus 70 vendors, illustrating that the femtocell ecosystem is
experiencing healthy growth.
• The CDMA femtocell market is also growing with Verizon Wireless and Sprint having launched enterprise
femtocells during Q4 2011 and the Femto Forum publishing a best practice guide for deploying CDMA
femtocells in cooperation with 3GPP2.
• Important progress has been made in the evolution of femtocell chipsets with new launches from
Cavium, Freescale, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. These join existing chipset vendors – Broadcom,
DesignArt, Picochip and Mindspeed.
• Femtocell-‐specific 3GPP, 3GPP2 and WiMAX standards have been completed, signalling that femtocell
technology has been ratified by the highest profile standardisation bodies worldwide.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 4
Operator Aspect The femtocell market continues to experience a flurry of activity, including further operator launches and
commitments and major milestones, including SFR’s free femtocell offering. Femtocell interest in the mobile
operator community continues to grow, while deployments increased to 37 in 24 countries (from 36 in 24
countries) during Q4 2011. Several operators have now reported deployments with 100s of thousands of
femtocells including:
• Sprint (US) has reported more than 500K units
• Both Softbank and SFR have reported more than 100K units
• Vodafone having reported femtocell registered users in the “hundreds of thousands” in the UK
• Although AT&T has not reported their numbers directly, analyst estimates also put this at over 500K units
Femto Forum operator members currently represent more than 2 billion mobile subscribers worldwide,
across multiple wireless technologies (WiMAX, UMTS and CDMA) and account for 34% of total mobile
subscribers worldwide.
Figure 1 illustrates operator members in the Femto Forum. For updated information on the Femto Forum
members and their activities, please see http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/membership.
Figure 1: Femto Forum mobile operator members
Source: Femto Forum
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 5
Femtocell Service Commercial Deployments and Announcements
As the number of femtocell deployments continues to increase, several operators have now launched for
both consumers and enterprise markets, while some are deploying femtocells in public places for coverage
and capacity enhancement. Several markets are now subject to competition, where operators have
identified femtocells as a competitive advantage and their competitors are launching femtocells to address
consumer demand.
As of October 2011, eight of the top 10 mobile operator groups (by revenue) now offer femtocell services,
including AT&T, France Telecom/Orange, Telefonica, T-‐Mobile/Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone amongst
others. Femto Forum memberships include both Tier-‐1 and Tier-‐2 operators, illustrating that the business
case for femtocells are not unique to the larger operators.
The total number of operator members of the Femto Forum is 66.
Table 1 below illustrates commercial femtocell services as of June 2011.
Table 1: Femtocell commercial deployments as of Q4 2011 (36 in 23 countries)
Offering Example Pricing Capabilities Launch date
1 USA
Consumer and Enterprise: Airave
$4.99 per month ($10 for unlimited calling, $20 for family plans)
Up to 6 3G users September 2007
http://bit.ly/sprint_us
2
Singapore
Consumer: Home Zone (UMTS)
$32.1 per month Up to 4 3G (postpaid) users November 2008
http://bit.ly/starhub_singapore
3 USA
Consumer and Enteprise: Network Extender
$249.99 Up to 3 2G 1xRTT users January 2009
http://bit.ly/verizon_us
4 UK
Consumer: Sure Signal (UMTS/HSPA)
Various options £50 upfront Free for >£45 contracts
Up to 4 3G users
July 2009 (Access Gateway) Rebranded January 2010
http://bit.ly/vodafone_us
5
USA
Consumer: 3G MicroCell
$159 Up to 4 3G users September 2009
http://bit.ly/ATT_us
6 France
Consumer: Home 3G (UMTS/HSPA)
€199 upfront Up to 4 3G users November 2009
http://bit.ly/sfr_france
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 6
7
Japan
Consumer: My Area (UMTS/HSPA)
$10 per month Up to 4 3G users November 2009
http://bit.ly/docomo_japan
8
China (Northern Provinces)
Consumer: 3G Inn (UMTS/HSPA)
FAP cost: CNY 1,200 Monthly fee: CNY 10
Up to 4 3G users November 2009
http://bit.ly/china_mobile
9
Portugal
Consumer: Sinal On (UMTS)
€99.99 upfront €7,8 monthly
Up to 4 3G users December 2009
http://bit.ly/optimus_portugal
10 Singapore
Consumer: CallZone (WCDMA)
Access point: SING$323 Monthly charge: SING$53.50
Up to 4 3G users January 2010
http://bit.ly/singtel_singapore
11 Spain
Consumer: Voz y Datos Premium Oficina (WCDMA)
€15 per month Up to 4 3G users June 2010
http://bit.ly/vodafone_spain
12
Japan
Consumer: Femtocell service (WCDMA)
Free of charge Up to 4 3G users June 2010
http://bit.ly/softbank_japan
13 Qatar
Public: Femtocell service in public areas (WCDMA)
Metro coverage Up to 4 3G users Announced June 2010
http://bit.ly/vodafone_qatar
14
Japan
Consumer: au Femtocell (CDMA2000 EV-‐DO)
Free of charge (in coverage deadspots) Up to 4 3G users July 2010
http://bit.ly/KDDI_japan
15 Greece
Consumer: Vodafone Access Gateway
Free of charge (>€40 monthly contract. €75 (<40 monthly) €150 retail price
Up to 4 3G users July 2010
http://bit.ly/vodafone_greece
16 Spain
Consumer: Mi Cobertura Movil
€9/month service charge Requires 3MB DSL service from Movistar
Up to 4 3G users August 2010
http://bit.ly/movistar_spain
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 7
17
United Kingdom
Enterprise: Femtocell services for business customers
October 2010
http://bit.ly/t-‐mobile_UK
18
Moldova
Consumer: Femtocell Unite
Femtocell tariff addons: Unilimited 3G voice, network, Internet.
Up to 4 3G users November 2010
http://bit.ly/moldtelecom
19 South Korea
Public: Femtocells for data offload
Deployed in public areas Up to 4 3G users December 2010
http://bit.ly/sktelecom_kr
20 New Zealand
Consumer and Enterprise: Sure Signal
Home AP cost: NZ$349 Enterprise AP cost: NZ$1033.85
Home: Up to 4 3G users Enterprise: Up to 16 3G users
January 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_nz
21 Ireland
Consumer: Sure Signal
€49 for Vodafone DSL customers €99 for rest
Up to 4 3G users February 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_ireland
22
Norway
Enterprise: Full Dekning
NOK 99 Up to 4 3G users February 2011
http://bit.ly/network_norway
23 Thailand
Public: Disaster areas: 2G femtocells deployed in disaster areas
March 2011
http://bit.ly/tot_thailand
24 Australia
Consumer: Homezone
Monthly fee of AU$5-‐10 (includes free calls) Up to 4 users April 2011
http://bit.ly/optus_au
25 Australia
Enterprise: Vodafone Expand
Unknown Two models: Small: Up to 4 users Large: Up to 16 users
May 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_au
26
Russia
Consumer: Minicells
Free Up to 4 users May 2011
http://bit.ly/megafon_ru
27 Italy
Consumer and Enteprise: Booster Privati Booster
Consumer: $240 Enterprise: $780
Consumer/Enterprise: Up to 4/8 users May 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_it
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 8
28 Hungary
Consumer and Enterprise: Mini Bázis
Consumer: $165 Enterprise: $640
Consumer/Enterprise: Up to 4/8 users May 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_hg
29 France
Enterprise: Couverture Site Confort
Upfront fee: €1,400 Monthly fee: €70 Multi FAP plans available
Up to 4 users May 2011
http://bit.ly/orange_fr
30 Romania
Enterprise: Extra Signal
Upfront fee: €500 Up to 16 users May 2011
http://bit.ly/orange_ro
31 Russia
Consumer: Reliable Access
Unknown Up to 4 users May 2011
http://bit.ly/mts_ru
32 Czech Republic
Consumer: Private 3G Zone
Upfront fee: CZK 3377 Up to 4 users July 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_cz
33 Russia
Enterprise Unknown Up to 8 users August 2011
http://bit.ly/beeline_ru
34 Netherlands
Enterprise: Sinaal Plus
Unknown Up to 4 users October 2011
http://bit.ly/vodafone_nl
35
Greece
Consumer: Perfect Signal
Upfront cost: €90 Discounts for postpaid subscribers
Up to 4 users October 2011
http://bit.ly/cosmote_gr
36 Romania
Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
Presented by Vodafone during Base Station Conference, September 2011
37 United States
Consumer: Homecell
$9.95 per month 2 year contract -‐ $49.95 equipment fee 1 year contract -‐ equipment fee $99.95 Month to Month service – equipment fee $199.95
Up to 4 users December 2011
http://bit.ly/mosaic_us
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 9
There are several other operators that have expressed interest in past femtocell trials and have announced
their plans to launch femtocell services in the future, including Free in France who aims to introduce
femtocells in a home gateway product during 2012. Mosaic Telecom’s and Celcom’s commitments are
significant in being the first instances of smaller operators committing to femtocells, showing that the
femtocell business case also benefits smaller operators. Following after these two regional operators,
Moldtelecom is the latest operator to offer femtocells, confirming that the business case for smaller
operators is positive. Bouygues Telecom has also expressed that femtocells will help to expand indoor
coverage with LTE networks.
Table 2 below presents a summary of deployment commitments expressed publicly.
Table 2: Femtocell deployment commitments
Operator Details
France
Expects to include femtocells in home gateway during 2012
United States
Intention to deploy an IMS-‐based femtocell network
United Arab Emirates
Intention to deploy a femtocell to improve coverage and capacity.
Taiwan
Intention to deploy femtocells after regulatory approval. All three
operators in Taiwan report that they will offer femtocell services with
subsidies.
Taiwan
Taiwan
Turkey
Intention to deploy an Iu-‐h femtocells, pending regulatory approval.
United Arab Emirates
Intention to deploy femtocells during 2011 to bridge fixed and mobile services
USA
Intention to deploy femtocell services.
United Kingdom
Intention to deploy femtocells for consumer services. Femtocell service ”BoostBox” for residential and enterprise now listed on website as “pre-‐launch”. Link
Kuwait
Intention to deploy femtocell services for consumer and enterprise customers.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 10
Israel
Intention to deploy femtocells.
France
Bouygues CEO has claimed that femtocells will help the operator to improve indoor coverage for LTE networks
United States -‐ Alaska
Intention to deploy femtocells for the consumer market.
South Korea
Intention to deploy LTE femtocells – world’s first during 2011.
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
The following chart illustrates a historical representation of deployments and commitments, both of which
have increased more than 200% within a year, while there have been 6 operator deployment
announcements in the last half-‐year alone and 18 similar announcements in 2011 so far.
Figure 2: Historical femtocell service deployments and commitments
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
Operators continue to identify a number of major user segments for femtocell and exciting service scenarios.
All femtocell deployments had previously been focused on consumer deployment, so it is significant to see
that several operators have now commercialised a femtocell service specific to enterprises. Enterprise only
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 11
femtocell deployments are starting to accelerate compared with previous quarters. Beeline (Russia) and
Vodafone (Netherlands) have launched enterprise only femtocell services during Q3 2011.
Additional segmentation is being considered, including open access, metro and rural applications. The
following table summarizes femtocell offerings segmented according to target group.
Table 3: Femtocell deployment segmentation according to target group
Target group Number of deployments Examples Consumer 20 Vodafone UK, AT&T, Cosmote Enterprise 6 T-‐Mobile UK, Network Norway, Orange France Consumer and Enterprise 6 Vodafone NZ, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Public 3 Vodafone Qatar, SK Telecom, TOT Thailand Rural 1 Softbank (using satellite backhaul)
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
From a regional perspective, the distribution of femtocell service deployments is expanding year on year in
all regions. As of Q3 2011, no next-‐generation (WiMAX or LTE) femtocell services have been deployed, but
Tier-‐1 mobile operators have expressed the view that LTE and subsequent high-‐capacity air interfaces are
most likely to be deployed through hierarchical cell structures, including femtocells. The publication of the
3GPP and WiMAX Forum standards for LTE and WiMAX femtocells respectively is a key-‐enabling factor
towards this.
Table 4: Commercial service launches by Geography and Technology
Regional view UMTS femtocell launches CDMA femtocell launches APAC 8 1 EMEA 24 -‐ Americas 1 2
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
Pricing models
As the femtocell market evolves, a variety of pricing models have surfaced, illustrating that mobile operators
are active in assessing the business case of femtocells and applying it to their regional environment. The
following table illustrates a selection of pricing models tied to femtocells, for both consumer and enterprise
markets.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 12
Table 5: Selection of pricing models for femtocell services
Market Pricing model Deployment examples
Consumer
Addons for unlimited calling MoldTelecom, Sprint, Optus Free femtocell Softbank, Vodafone (GR), SFR Low upfront fee Vodafone (UK) High upfront fee Vodafone (IT, HU), Verizon Monthly fee Sprint, Movistar, NTT DoCoMo
Enterprise High upfront fee All operators
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
The majority of consumer femtocell services rely on a low upfront fee. On the other hand, enterprise
deployments are subject to high costs (e.g. Orange France charges an upfront fee of €1100 and €70 per
month for an enterprise femtocell) but these costs are justifiable since femtocells are operator installed and
technicians perform on site visits and surveys to select the best location for installing the femtocells. In
addition, enterprise femtocells are bigger units compared to consumer units which may also increase the
cost considerably.
Notable examples are Optus, Mold Telecom and Sprint, who are offering bundles that can be applied to their
femtocell services to offer unlimited voice, data or messaging in return for a monthly fee.
A major trend is now free femtocells with Softbank, Vodafone and Cosmote in Greece and SFR now offering
the FAPs for free. SFR’s example is notable, which does not require customers to fulfill ARPU requirements
to qualify for a free femtocell.
Trial Status
Trial activity has been very healthy during 2009 and 2010 and has created a good pipeline for deployments
during 2010 and 2011. Although the majority of trials remain behind closed doors and no public
announcements are made, the increase in announcements shows a healthy growth in the femtocell market.
According to Informa’s calculations, the number of trials that are taking place during Q3 2011 are more than
50.
Competitive landscape
Several markets across the globe are now subject to femtocell competition, where more than one mobile
operator have launched femtocells to address competition. The following map illustrates the state of the
femtocell market in the global landscape.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 13
Figure 3: Femtocell competitive markets
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
Ecosystem – Industry Support The Femtocell ecosystem continues to grow in both breadth and depth as the femtocell market transitions
from early adopter phase to early market growth. At a high level the femtocell ecosystem can be segmented
by
• End-‐to-‐End solution providers: These vendors provide a complete femtocell solution which includes
Femtocell Access Points (FAP), femto gateways, necessary middleware and other parts that
complete a large scale femtocell deployment. This segment includes NSN, ip.access, Ericsson,
Huawei, Cisco and Alcatel-‐Lucent.
• Femtocell Access Point (FAP) providers: Vendors who offer FAPs directly to operators or through
other partners, including Ubiquisys, ip.access, Airvana and Netgear.
• Femtocell Core Network providers: Vendors that focus on provisioning femtocells in the mobile core
network, including Kineto Wireless and Spidercloud.
• Software and Component providers: Vendors who focus on specific parts of the femtocell software
stack or provide the necessary silicon to power FAPs. Vendors include Picochip, Percello, Continuous
Computing, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm.
• Others, including test and certification houses, research institutes and other enablers that may focus
indirectly on femtocells operation.
It is common for vendors to focus in more than a single market segment, especially end to end providers
that may offer specific parts of a femtocell deployment standalone.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 14
There are 68 vendors in this ecosystem today focusing on products and services in the emerging femtocell
marketplace. There are currently 8 providers of End-‐to-‐End and System Integration worldwide and more
than 23 FAP providers covering most licensed spectrum types; their number is increasing rapidly as
component manufacturers are introducing flexible reference platforms for femtocell access points. There
are more than 23 equipment providers providing core network components that can support femtocell
services and in excess of 17 component, software and tools vendors providing a health supply to various
parts of the solution space.
All major infrastructure vendors have now joined the Femto Forum and there are several smaller companies
targeting smaller, specialist segments, including test and certification, femtocell specific silicon and core
network components.
Figure 4: Femtocell ecosystem
End$to$end$$system$providers$
Network$$Elements$
Components$and$So6ware$
Other$enablers$
Products$
Source: Femto Forum
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 15
Figure 5: Segmentation of vendors in femtocell ecosystem
8"
17"
23" 23"
11"
0"
5"
10"
15"
20"
25"
End"to"End"solu.ons"
Components"and"So5ware"
Femto"Access"Points"
Networking"elements"
Other"enablers"
Source: Femto Forum
End to End Solution Providers & System Integrators
At present there are 8 providers of end-‐to-‐end femtocell systems worldwide. Solution providers made good
progress throughout 2009 to early 2011 assembling trial and initial market solutions. All solution providers
have committed to supporting open standards, especially the 3GPP Iu-‐h interface standard that was ratified
during 2009. Several Tier-‐1 vendors are in this segment, including NSN, Alcatel-‐Lucent, Huawei, ZTE and
Cisco. The presence of all Tier-‐1 vendors is evidence of the perceived potential of the market.
Femto Access Point
There are currently 23 femtocell CPE vendors and between them they have more than 50 available or
announced product offerings. The breadth of CPE solutions varies in both technology and integration of
other broadband access technologies. Standalone and integrated CPE have already entered the market. FAP
vendors have provided a variety of intelligent algorithms for interference mitigation and this is a critical
turning point for mobile operator acceptance. These vendors are also starting to expand their product lines
to enterprise and larger area femtocells, representing a healthy competitive development in a key part of
the ecosystem.
Femto Core Network
20 vendors now provide core network components for femtocells with several solutions covering security,
provisioning and integration of the femtocell services into the existing mobile operator core network. The
categories included in this section are security gateways, femto gateways (FNG or HNB-‐GW), Convergence
Servers (e.g. MFIF) and HNB management.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 16
Components, Tools and Software
An important factor contributing to rapid market development is a healthy ecosystem of component
vendors, development and test tool as well as protocol/system software. Silicon providers are continuously
evolving hardware platforms to enable FAP vendors to offer femtocell access points that are more efficient
and capable of higher capacity.
Market Forecasts Informa Telecoms & Media expects the femtocell market to experience significant growth over the next few
years, reaching just under 48 million femtocell access points (FAP) in the market by 2014. The following chart
illustrates Informa’s forecasts (June 2011) for femtocell access point shipments.
Figure 6: Femtocell access point forecasts
!"!!!!
!10!!
!20!!
!30!!
!40!!
!50!!
!60!!
2009! 2010! 2011! 2012! 2013! 2014!
Femtocell(access(points(in(market((millions)(
Source: Informa Telecoms & Media
In addition, many industry analysts who cover a number of aspects of the femtocell ecosystem have begun
to track and forecast the progress of the femtocell market. The following table provides a summary of
publicly announced statements, sorted by reverse chronological order. The table is followed by more
information regarding each statement:
• Mobile Experts published a report on small cell backhaul, claiming that more than 1.8 million small cell
wireless backhaul unit shipments during 2016. (Mobile Experts – October 2011)
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 17
• IDate estimates that worldwide femtocell access point market will reach a cumulative total of 39.4
million deployed units by 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 71% between
2011 and 2015. (IDate – September 2011)
• Infonetics anticipates that femtocells will gain mass-‐scale traction in 2012, at which point the year-‐over-‐
year unit growth rate will jump to over 100%, and will stay at triple-‐digit levels in 2013. (Infonetics –
September 2011)
• ABI Research estimates that Enterprise femtocells are to make up 36% of shipments by 2016 which
relates to 50% of security gateway revenues (ABI Research – August 2011)
• Infonetics estimates that total global revenue from femtocells used in consumer, enterprise, rural and
public spaces grew 45% during the past 4 quarters. (Infonetics – June 2011).
• Visiongain expects femtocell revenues will reach US $27 Billion in 2016 and that femtocells have entered
into the growth stage of their lifecycle during 2011 (Visiongain – May 2011).
• Juniper Research predicts that Wi-‐Fi and femtocell networks will play a significant role in easing data
traffic by carrying 63 percent of data traffic, or almost 9,000 petabytes by 2015 (Juniper Research – April
2011).
• Infonetics Research predicts that rapid acceleration in the market will happen during 2012, when
femtocell shipments should exceed 5 million worldwide, driven by a diversification from the consumer
and enterprise segments to rural and public spaces. (Infonetics Research – March 2011).
• Cisco expects that by 2015, over 800 million terabytes of mobile data traffic will be offloaded to the fixed
network by means of dual-‐mode devices and femtocells. Without dual-‐mode and femtocell offload of
smartphone and tablet traffic, total mobile data traffic would reach 7.1 exabytes per month in 2015,
growing at a CAGR of 95 percent. (Cisco – February 2011)
• Maravedis expects the price of femtocell access points to fall to as low as US$70-‐80 in 2011 from its
$100 price during end-‐2019. Maravedids also expects the demand for femtocells will be highest in 2012,
when upfront payment is expected to be below $50. (Maravedis – January 2011).
Standards Development The majority of industry standards have ratified femtocells in their activities, including 3GPP, 3GPP2 and
WiMAX. Ongoing standardisation activities are taking place to enhance the operation of femtocells in these
networks.
3GPP Femtocell Standardisation
3GPP Release 9 was functionally frozen during December 2009 and extends significantly by fully supporting
LTE femtocells for the first time thereby allowing upcoming rollouts to incorporate the technology from the
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 18
outset. It also supports a greater number of simultaneous users, emergency warning systems and both
private and public usage models.
Release 9 provides end-‐to-‐end support for LTE femtocells, including all radio and OAM aspects, enabling the
development of the first standardised devices. It also supports hybrid access so femtocells can be used in
retail environments to provide open access to customers yet also provide prioritised usage for a closed
group such as staff. WCDMA uplink bandwidth requirements have been revised allowing a major increase in
the amount of calls that can be simultaneously supported. Finally, the standard also supports public warning
services so that areas without macro coverage can receive emergency messages such as Tsunami warnings.
3GPP Release 10 has been frozen in March 2010 and protocols were made stable during June 2011. Release
10 has introduced support for mobility enhancements for Home eNodeBs. The Stage 2 architecture for the
enhancements was ratified in the RAN Plenary in December 2010, which introduces a new Iurh interface
between the femtocell access points and supports soft and hard handover between femtocells. Other
important additions to Release 10 include Self Optimizing Networks (SON), Selective IP Traffic Offload
(SIPTO) and Local IP Access (LIPA).
Proposals to consider new functionality, including support of Cell_FACH for HNBs and inter-‐CSG handover for
HeNBs were removed from the Release 10 work item, and are now likely to be considered during Release 11.
Broadband Forum Standardisation
The Femto Forum has worked with the Broadband Forum to to standardize the inclusion of the ability to
manage Femtocell based services. The Femto Forum announced the activity in this area this past March
with the publication of the Femtocell Services Release 1 API (press release)
The Femto Forum guideline WT-‐262 is going to be issued as TR-‐262 from the Broadband Forum, making
femtocell integration simpler in broadband networks.
• Broadband Forum TR-‐196 “Femto Access Point Service Data Model” was published in April 2009.
• A new update to TR-‐196 to include enhancements for LTE and CDMA2000 networks is expected during
Q1 2011.
3GPP2 Femtocell Standardisation
The 3GPP2 formal publication of femtocell specifications was published during March 2010. The following
list describes the technical specifications of the new standard:
• SIP/IMS is used in the core network to integrate femtocell services, allowing a variety of components
from different vendors to interoperate.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 19
• Enhanced System Selection is supported for improved handset battery life, faster femtocell and
macrocell system acquisition, improved handoff between femtocell and macrocell and femtozone
awareness.
• Local and Remote IP Access is supported, allowing packet data traffic to be directly offloaded from
femtocells to customers’ home networks, corporate intranets, or to the public Internet. When mobile
devices are operating outside of the femtocell subsystem, the 3GPP2 specifications also include a
remote access capability to allow mobile devices to connect to the user’s IP network at home and
exchange IP data with their home network via a secure remote tunnel
The 3GPP2 specifications provide a complete security architecture that allows CDMA2000 femtocell
networks to support large numbers of femtocells via standard commercial IPsec/IKEv2-‐based security
gateways. The 3GPP2 security architecture and protocols are compatible with the security architecture for
3GPP radio technology-‐based femtocell devices. This architecture not only protects system operators’ core
networks, but also provides for highly secure authentication of FAP devices using secure certificate-‐based
mechanisms and protocols that are widely deployed and validated for security, robustness, manageability,
and scalability.
WiMAX Forum Femtocell Standardisation
The WiMAX Forum and the Femto Forum announced the publication of the first WiMAX™ femtocell standard
during June 2010 (http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/pressreleases.php?id=139).
The specifications incorporate a security framework that allows WiMAX networks to support a large number
of access points via standard commercial IPSec based security gateways. This phase of specifications also
contains simple Self Organizing Network (SON) capabilities to allow automatic configuration of large
numbers of femtocells. Future revisions will further enhance the SON capabilities to standardize automatic
interference management between femtocells and macro base stations.
The standard also incorporates support for three usage models to support different deployment scenarios
such as residential, enterprise and outdoor environments. The ‘Open Model’ allows the femtocell to operate
like a normal WiMAX base station by allowing anyone to use the service; ‘Closed Subscriber Group (CSG)
Closed’ allows a limited number of pre-‐allocated subscribers to use the femtocell. The ‘Closed Subscriber
Group (CSG) Open’ extends the previous model to allow the subscriber to add users themselves.
Regulatory Developments In April 2011 the Femto Forum issued two regulatory updates:
1. Regulatory considerations for LTE deployments
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 20
The Forum issued a short statement for the benefit of regulators who may be considering specific regulatory
requirements for femtocells using LTE technologies. It emphasised that femtocells are fully encompassed in
the 3GPP’s LTE standard and, as is the case with existing 3G femtocells, are fully managed by a licenced
mobile operator via secure connections and management systems, allowing them to comply with relevant
licencing conditions in the same fashion. It also highlighted the regulatory benefits of femtocells including
improved access to mobile services and improved spectrum efficiency thereby making the technology a key
part of LTE rollouts. A full paper of femtocell regulatory considerations is available on the Forum’s website
here: http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/Files/File/regulatory_support_for_lte_femtocells_6apr11.pdf
2. Cellular interference – distinguishing between types of cellular boosters and femtocells
The second update focused on the controversy surrounding the issue of interference caused by the use of
cellular signal boosters in the United States. It highlighted that certain specially designed signal boosters can
be deployed without causing interference issues, the controversy therefore surrounds the use of improperly
designed signal boosters. However, it also highlighted the distinction between boosters and femtocells
which provide the virtues of specially designed signal boosters but with the added advantage that they also
significantly improve network capacity. As such femtocells can provide mobile services in areas where cell
capacity is under major strain – a situation which cell boosting technology is fundamentally incapable of
addressing.
In addition, several national and international regulatory bodies have taken specific steps to clarify issues of
policy and regulation relating to femtocells.
• The FCC is organizing a forum focusing on indoor deployments of small cells to take place during 28th
October to discuss technologies available, potential business models and economic impart of small cell
deployments.
• In March 2011 UK regulator Ofcom published its consultation on the award of the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz
spectrum, expected to take place in the first half of 2012. This includes an option for a portion of the 2.6
GHz band, potentially up to 2 x 20 MHz, to be awarded specifically for low-‐power use. This portion of the
band could be shared by as many as ten operators concurrently, with technical measures and a potential
code of practice amongst operators to limit potential interference. This consultation represents perhaps
the first example of a spectrum award being explicitly designed to take account of the technical
Femto Forum provides specific information for regulators at http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/regulatory.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 21
Latest News from Femto Forum 3GPP2 and Femto Forum Publish Best Practice Guide for cdma2000 Femtocell Deployments
3GPP2 and the Femto Forum announced the publication of an operator guide for cdma2000 femtocell and
small cell deployments. It provides an overview of cdma2000 standardized architecture and interfaces, as
well as deployment best practices. These include rollout models, frequency planning, provisioning options,
radio parameters, interference mitigation techniques, security and handoff.
© 2011 Informa Telecoms & Media, Femtocell Market Status page 22
Contact Information Femto Forum would be pleased to respond to further queries on femtocell deployment.
Contact details: Email: [email protected] Web: www.femtoforum.org Postal: The Femto Forum
P O Box 23 Dursley GL11 5WA UK
Suggestions for additional content – particularly analyst forecasts – may be submitted to
Informa Telecoms & Media Editor – Dimitris Mavrakis, Principal Analyst
Contact details: Email: [email protected] Web: www.informatandm.com Postal: Informa Telecoms & Media
37-‐41 Mortimer Street London W1T 3JH UK
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