Qualcomm's investment in ip.access, the UK femtocell system supplier, follows a recent report that ip.access has won a massive order for femtocells from AT&T.
Panmure Gordon, the stockbrokers and investment bankers, recently put out a note saying that ip.access had won an order for seven million femtocells against stiff competition from Motorola, Alcatel, Nokia-Siemens, Airvana and 2Wire, among others.
The Panmure Gordon report caused widespread interest in the wireless industry because it meant that, if AT&T was committing to femtocells, then other operators could be on the verge of placing large orders.
To that end, Panmure Gordon surmised that Cisco would probably make a play to buy ip.access.
Although neither ip.access nor Qualcomm have made any announcement as to the size of the investment in ip.access, other than to say that the amount is 'significant', Qualcomm's investment could be to try and make such a sale less likely.
Cisco is already an investor in ip.access along with Intel Capital, ADC, Motorola Ventures, Scottish Equity Partners, Rothschild Gestion and Amadeus Capital Partners.
ip.access has a femtocell system called Oyster 3G which uses a residential broadband connection to deliver a high-quality 3G signal in the home.
The attraction to network operators is that femtocells enhance the strength and range of wireless signals, without the operators having to invest in their network infrastructure, and is an alternative to people using home WiFi to make phone calls using Skype phones and the like.
"We aim to facilitate new and exciting mobile phone-based services that otherwise wouldn't and couldn't work indoors," said Stephen Mallinson, CEO of ip.access.
Femtocells have been waiting to get acceptance from the major carriers. "This is the year it's got to get real", said Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing at picoChip, who coined the term 'femtocell', "at least twenty carriers are doing significant things with femtocells, and some have said they'll place an order."
picoChip makes chips for femtocell systems and numbers ip.access among its customers.
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