Network Norway, the provider of professional mobile business solutions, today announced the launch of its femtocell service after a year-long user trial. Network Norway becomes the first Scandinavian operator to launch femtocells, and the first in the world to offer self-organising networks (SON) of femtocells to cover business buildings.
“The telecom industry has for years overlooked indoor coverage as a driver of business productivity. Our experience, from a thorough user trial with NEC, shows that our customers highly value the quality of service underpinned by femtocell technology,” said Network Norway CEO, Arild Hustad.
“Mobile business services require high quality, dependable indoor coverage. NEC’s femtocell solutions will provide the required indoor coverage to make uninterrupted mobile calls and run data-intensive applications on their smartphones and mobile devices. We view femtocell as a key driver in delivering a first class indoor end-user experience for business,” said Fredrik Turmegard, CEO, NEC Scandinavia.
“Femtocells provide reliable indoor 3G coverage thus enabling operators to build premium mobile services for their customers when indoors. NEC is providing a complete end-to-end Femtocell solution to Network Norway including femtocell access points from its strategic partner Ubiquisys and NEC’s femtocell gateway, femtocell management and provisioning system,” said Anil Kohli, General Manager, Femtocell, NEC Europe.
“Based on customer experiences in the user trial we find that femtocells can support a mobile-only strategy. The fact that the majority of the customers taking part in the trial demanded a continuous commercial service to be established was a clear indication that the technology offers business advantage,” said Tom Guldberg, CSO, Network Norway. He also underlined that the Norwegian operator will use small cells as an integrated part of its future network strategy.
The user trial was conducted with Network Norway customers in mixed-use buildings throughout Norway, included a light-industrial bakery, a logistics depot, and a shopping mall restaurant. The trial was conducted with femtocell solution NEC and included self organising femtocells from NEC.
The trial results were very positive, with 67% of customers refusing to return the femtocells, demanding an ongoing commercial service.