UMA Today Magazine: Beyond Voice Page 11

FALL 2008

UMA TODAY

Femtocells, low-power base stations designed for in-

home deployments, burst on to the mobile networking
scene two years ago. Since then, vendors and operators
alike have invested heavily in efforts aimed at bringing
the devices to market as soon as possible.

The rallying point of the market has been The Femto

Forum, which recently celebrated a very successful
inaugural year of operation. As of August 2008, the group
counted more than 80 member companies, including
operators such as AT&T, Bharti/Airtel, China Telecom,
O2, Orange and Vodafone. The forum has been active in
smoothing the way for service provider deployments.

DRIVING

STANDARDIZATION

SMOOTH DEPLOYMENTS

A key area of focus

for the femtocell community is to drive a standardized
interface between the femtocell access point and the
mobile core network

(see "UMA Jumpstarts Femtocell

Market," UMA Today Magazine, Spring 2008). Many
believe that a standard is necessary for the mass market
success of femtocells.

In June 2008, it was announced that the 3GPP had

agreed to a preliminary architecture for standardizing the
femtocell interface.

The architecture is based on a `RAN Gateway' approach,

whereby a new network element is deployed in the mobile
operator's access network. The RAN Gateway connects to
the mobile service core via standardized Iu interfaces and
supports the full range of existing and new circuit and
packet services.

Within the 3GPP, the femtocell is known as a Home Node

B (HNB). The 3GPP defined a new network interface (Iu-
h) which connects the femtocell/HNB in the subscriber's
home to the HNB Gateway (HNB-GW) deployed in the
mobile core network.

Unlike traditional radio access network equipment,

femtocells connect directly to fixed broadband networks,
brings a new set of challenges for deployment. In response,
the Femto Forum announced an agreement with the
Broadband Forum for the use of the existing TR-069
specification in the management of femtocell access points.
Approximately 30 million devices now use this standard,
and adopting it will enable femtocells to be easily deployed
and configured reliably, and in high volume.

Simon Saunders, the Femto Forum's chairman

commented on this: "Femtocells are sophisticated pieces
of telecommunications equipment, but they are also first and
foremost consumer devices, and as such, they have to be simple
enough to be installed and used by the average consumer."

FEMTOCELLS GO LIVE

While the industry

is chattering about many lab and field trials worldwide,
Sprint in the U.S. has pushed ahead of the pack to claim the
industry's first commercial femtocell deployment. Sprint
announced a trial of its Airave service back in October 2007,
and has since been refining the service and offer.

In mid-August 2008, Sprint subscribers nationwide could

sign up for the Airave service. Subscribers pay a one-time
fee of $99.00 for the femtocell equipment, and a monthly
recurring service fee of $4.95. Sprint is also offering an
unlimited calling plan for an additional $10/month.

Clearly, Sprint is aggressively deploying the Airave

service as a competitive response to T-Mobile's Wi-Fi based
home zone service, Unlimited HotSpot Calling. It's likely
this scenario will repeat in competitive mobile markets
worldwide.

One country likely to see a femtocell service offer

shortly is France. With Orange's Wi-Fi-based Unik service
garnering attention and subscribers (more than 1 million,
as of Q1 2008), SFR and Bouygues, the second and third
largest mobile operators in France, must be assessing
competitive home zone service offers.

Femtocells are
sophisticated pieces of
telecommunications
equipment, but they are
also first and foremost
consumer devices, and
as such, they have to
be simple enough to be
installed and used by
the average consumer.

Simon Saunders, the Femto
Forum's chairman