Trends in the femtocell market
Q: Keith Dyer, Editor, Mobile Europe
A: Anil Kohli, General Manager Femtocell Solutions, Europe, NEC
What is NEC’s current role in the development of the femtocell market?
NEC has always been a leader in the femtocell market and continues to innovate on the hardware, services, applications and business case. NEC
has signed major operators up for femtocell in Europe and Japan including SoftBank, SFR and Network Norway. The number of NEC femtocell access points in current use number in the tens of thousands. NEC is also leading the development of innovative femtocell solutions, working closely with our technology partners.
Our report questions whether SIP still has a role to play in femtocell integration. What are your views on standards adoption in this area?
Softbank deploy an end -to-end IMS (IP Multimedia System) network which has a significant footprint in Japan. In Europe SIP as a standard has been slow to catch hold but with Skype accounting for 12 per cent of all global voice traffic it is inevitable that SIP will become a major part of any future mobile network delivering rich media and voice services.
Who will come to dominate femtocell manufacture? The integrators – such as NEC – or the consumer electronics manufacturers?
Integrators like NEC are uniquely positioned to deliver a broad range of applications and professional services to femtocell operators. Hardware vendors and integrators must differentiate by marketing their strengths in technology and expertise. As a result, operators are building closer relationships with their vendors that foster environments of co-development and mutual success.
How important will femtocells be to LTE deployment? And how important will LTE be for the femtocell market?
We believe small cells and femtocells are the key to successful LTE deployment. Not only do they save on total cost of ownership, they also give mobile operators the control to roll out small-scale or wide-scale LTE networks according to capacity demand – and with minimal planning requirements. NEC’s small cell LTE solution, the smallest all-in-one compact LTE base station – is SON (Self-Organising Network) empowered. This allows an efficient, easier and faster deployment and a much lower operation cost than previous 2G and 3G deployments.
Is enterprise adoption of femtocells likely to be significant? And are there any likely barriers to enterprise adoption of femtocell?
A successful global femtocell market is building as we enter 2010. Throughout 2010, the industry will see more and more operators deploying residential and enterprise femtocell networks. These will deliver the value-added services and real five-bar indoor coverage that is required to access capacity-intensive applications.
To date, femtocells have been largely dedicated devices attached to existing access networks. As the market develops femtocells will be integrated into residential and business gateways as a standard feature.
One of the main concerns of operators has been to understand the business case. As volumes increase the overall cost of femtocell is aligning with requirements, strengthening the business case for high-performance indoor coverage.
Femtocell lends itself to the enterprise very well given the types of devices that are prolific in the enterprise (dongles, smart phones etc) and the high degree of concentration of employees with those devices in buildings. They also help the operator offload their macro network and give their high-value customers a better and more elegant mobile experience.
Is your feeling that consumers will come to demand femtocells, or that operators will have to work hard to push them out into the market?
There is going to be a mixture initially but the residential market will catch up as it always does with new technology like this. In time, the high level of reliable service delivered by femtocells will become the norm for indoor coverage. Eventually, the underlying user base will start to demand that level of enabled service everywhere they go.