Next quarter, PicoChip and BitWave of Boston will demonstrate a software defined radio (SDR) board for performing both the RF front end and baseband processing functions for a femtocell.
"We expect to have a working demo in Q2", Erik Org, vice president of marketing at BitWave, told Electronics Weekly. Asked when they would have product, Org replied: "This year". The board works with frequencies from 500MHz to 5GHz for any standard.
Next week, the wireless telecommunications industry meets to define the business model for deploying femtocell technology, when the wireless network operators meet the suppliers of the technology at a plenary meeting of the FemtoForum in Munich.
"All the big wireless operators will be there next week to decide how this can be made to work in a business sense. It's not about technology, it's about how femtocells will be deployed, whether it's pay-as-you-go, how much to charge, how to market the technology", said Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing at PicoChip, who originally coined the term 'Femtocell'.
The ideal deployment would be that people go down the High Street buy a femtocell, take it home, plug it in and it works. More likely is a set-top-box or DSL type of deployment where each operator has its own femtocell architecture and supplier.
One of the two likely standards for 4G technology, LTE, may well be complemented by femtocells when used outside cities.
"LTE is primarily foe high rate services and mostly for people looking at higher frequencies, and it's very well suited for dense coverage areas like cities. But LTE is not very good at long range services and lower frequencies. That's where LTE can best be implemented by femtocells," said Baines.
Femtocells are low-cost basestations for 3G access, which are installed inside a home or an office to improve coverage and data rates. They have two basic advantages for the network operators, first they give users an improved service without the operators having to upgrade or add their own basestations, and secondly they head off the threat of consumers using home WiFi networks to make free calls via wireless VOIP devices like Skype phones.