Read our International Electronics Forum 2008 News
Roundup
Telecom Italia
is very interested in deploying femtocells and is in trials with
femtocell suppliers, but it wants the cost of femtocell units to
come down vis a vis
WiFi
routers, according to Luigi Licciardi, executive vice president of
Telecom Italia's domestic mobile services (TIM) speaking to the
International Electronics
Forum 2008 in Dubai this afternoon.
"We appeal to the semiconductor industry to reduce the cost of
the access gate if we are to use this technology". Licciardi asked
the many semiconductor industry executives at the forum.
One way in which the chip industry might approach the problem
is, said Licciardi: "They might think about putting the femtocell
and the ADSL modem in a single box."
"We can accept a difference in cost with WiFi at the beginning
but we want to see a way to getting that down", said Licciardi.
Apart from cost, Licciardi was very upbeat on femtocells. "We
think femtocell is a very interesting technology", he said, "one of
the most attractive solutions for our customers is to have a flat
rate, a cheap rate, to use the mobile handset at home and
femtocells can solve some problems like inside coverage."
It is rumoured that AT&T have put an order for 7m femtocell
units on their supplier, IP Access, after a bidding process. If
that is true, it will provoke an explosion in roll-out as other
carriers get in on femtocells.
Femtocells are attractive to carriers because they boost
bandwidth and range without the carriers having to invest any
money, and they provide and alternative to customers who might be
tempted to use Skype phones over WiFi in their homes.
See also: Mannerisms, the blog of David
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