Inter-operability is the key to the rapid growth of the femtocell business into a mass volume market, according to femto chip-maker picoChip of Bath, which has taken the initiative in delivering inter-operability via a three-way co-operation with Starent, which makes specialised routers for mobile network equipment and CCPU, which bought the Trillium stack business from Intel.
"We've co-operated to deliver inter-operability between independent companies on the new 3GPP standard", Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing at picoChip, told Electronics Weekly.
A demonstration of hardware developed by the three companies will be shown next week at the Heathrow-based Femto World Summit from June 23-25.
"The concern about femtocells is that you might have to buy the box from the same company that delivers the core equipment to the operator", said Baines, "that concern has worked to slow down mass market development."
So are other femto players going to co-operate on inter-operability? "We're optimistic," replied Baines, "we are the first people to implement and demonstrate this. As other people come along, they can all play nice with each other. This is not exclusive - we look forward to working with everyone else. Broad inter-operability with everyone in the industry is the only way to get a high volume market."
The wireless industry has a poor record on co-ordinating inter-operability, so how confident is he that others will follow suit? "This is one of the areas where people will co-operate", replied Baines, "it's so much in peoples' interests to get this, in order to drive volumes in the market. This is one place where competitors will co-operate for the good of everyone."
Are there any signs that the industry is going to co-operate? The Femto Forum is co-ordinating a plug-fest", replied Baines, "the schedules are being agreed across the industry."
How does picoChip feel about big players like Qualcomm coming into the femtocell market?
"Femto's very important to Qualcomm, they're taking it very seriously", responded Baines, "having them supporting it makes the operators take it very seriously. Before, it was a bit like being in a restaurant where there's no one else. You think: 'What do people know about this place?'"