Motorola has completed end-to-end testing of its 3G femtocell basestation systems and has begun trialling basestations with a major European operator.
Femtocells support small area, in-the-home wireless voice and data services. Earlier this year, the femtocell industry moved to develop open standards to link GSM and 3G mobile phones to the network from basestations in the home.
“In Europe, 30 to 40 per cent of the cellular traffic is generated from inside the home. Femtocells provide a more efficient way for operators to manage traffic generated indoors, compared to the outdoor macrocells of the public cellular infrastructure,” said Vincent Poulbere, principal analyst, Ovum.
Motorola said its end-to-end system is based on open standard interfaces and it includes a range of femtocell customer premises equipment and 3G devices, a core network concentrator, systems integration services and a management system.
“In Western Europe, we forecast that 12 million femtocells will be deployed in 2010 rising to 17 million in 2011,” added Poulbere.