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.