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Tag: femtocell

  • picoChip Develops First Public Access Femtocell Solution

    picoChip today unveiled the PC333, the first chip specifically designed to extend the femtocell into the realm of public access infrastructure such as metro femto, rural femto and strand-mounted systems.

    According to the company, the PC333 System-on-Chip (SoC) device is the first femtocell chip to support 32 channels (scalable to 64) for simultaneous voice and HSPA+ data, the first to support MIMO, the first to support soft-handover and the first to conform to the Local Area Basestation (LABS) standard.

    picoChip says that the PC333 enables small basestations for urban hot-spots, city-centers or public access to be made and deployed at a cost far lower than traditional approaches, “radically changing the economics of network infrastructure.”

    The PC333 is the highest-specification femtocell available, and represents a significant step in bringing a complete 3GPP Release 8 Local Area 42Mbps HSPA+ basestation onto a single-chip.

    LABS is the 3GPP definition for systems with higher performance than home-basestations, allowing higher capacity, 120km/h mobility and +24dBm output power for greater than 2km range.

    The PC333 supports 32 channels, each with both voice and HSPA+ data and, with picoChip’s smartSignaling technology, in excess of 400 simultaneous smartphone users. Two of the devices can also be cascaded to support 64 active channels. The product runs on a 700MHz ARM chip with TrustZone and variety of specialized hardware features for security. As well as LABS conformance and release 8 HSPA+ (42Mbps downlink, 11 Mpbps uplink), the PC333 supports soft handover, receive diversity and MIMO.

    “Someday, all basestations will be made like this,” asserted Doug Pulley, CTO of picoChip. “With the PC333 we have extended the parameters of femtocell performance to levels that would traditionally have been considered as ‘picocell’ or even ‘microcell’. This high performance coupled with zero-touch provisioning means carriers can routinely deploy femtocells as part of their wide-area network rollouts. We are already seeing the emergence of femtocells into rural and metropolitan-area basestations,” he added.

    “As data traffic rises inexorably, it is evident that conventional macrocell architectures cannot cope both from a cost and capability point of view. Service providers are going to be deploying different, innovative basestation architectures to address this challenge effectively,” stated Simon Saunders, Chairman of The Femto Forum.

    The PC333 will be sampled in 4Q2010 to “lead customers.”

  • ip.access & Kineto Complete Femtocell Interoperability Testing

    ip.access and Kineto Wireless have announced successful interoperability testing between ip.access’ Oyster 3G femtocell Access Point and Kineto’s Multi-Service Access Gateway (MSA-GW).

    The testing was based on 3GPP’s Release 8 Iuh specification, which defines the standard interface between femtocell Access Points and the femtocell gateway. The Iuh standard makes it easier for mobile network operators to deploy femtocells in multi-vendor environments, ultimately giving them a wider choice of suppliers.

    According to the companies, they have separately deployed femtocell solutions successfully for mobile network operators. The two companies have taken a leading role in the development of the Iuh standard through their involvement in the Femto Forum and 3GPP, and both companies participated in the world’s first femtocell plugfest organized by the Femto Forum and ETSI in March 2010.

    "The femtocell industry’s progress in defining and implementing open standards has been impressive, and we see this is an important step in proving and improving those standards. Kineto and ip.access are two companies distinguished by having their technology live in production networks. This step marks another important milestone in our lengthening technical leadership,” said Dr. Nick Johnson, CTO of ip.access.

    According to Ken Kolderup, vice president and general manager of Kineto’s Infrastructure Business Unit, delivery of standards-based femtocell systems are crucial to supporting the next phase of operator deployments. "The relative ease with which we were able to confirm interoperability with ip.access is a testament to both the completeness of the Iu h specification and the market-readiness of our respective products,” he said.

    Related articles
    Femtocell Base Stations Poised for Spectacular Growth
    MWC 2010: Interview with Chris Cox, Product Line Manager at ip.access
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    Kineto Announces Combined VoLGA / IMS Client for Voice Over LTE

  • Femtocell Base Stations Poised for Spectacular Growth

    The research group iSuppli says that the ecosystem surrounding femtocells, or cellular base stations that improve indoor wireless coverage, is headed toward critical mass among all major nodes of the wireless supply chain and will vault into explosive growth after reaching a decisive watershed this year.

    According to iSuppli’s projections, unit shipments of femtocells will more than triple this year, rising to 1.9 million, up from 571,000 in 2009. A period of phenomenal expansion then will follow, with shipments reaching 7.2 million units in 2011, up 289 percent from 2010.

    Shipments will rise by 232 percent to reach 23.9 million units in 2012 and by a whopping 657 percent to hit 39.6 million units in 2013.

    “Throughout the wireless supply chain, companies are busy mobilizing to provide solutions for femtocells, which resemble Wi-Fi routers in appearance,” said Francis Sideco, principal analyst for wireless research at iSuppli.

    “Instead of enabling wireless local area networks, however, femtocell base stations improve 3G coverage inside buildings or homes—locations where wireless signals tend to be weak because of building materials blocking the signal or the site’s distance from a cell tower.”

    Among participant nodes, Tier 1 entities in the United States and major global operators like Vodafone Group plc in the United Kingdom have launched femtocell solutions. Commercial deployments also are being launched by an increasing number of carriers around the world.

    In addition to carriers, several device manufacturers are firming up their femtocell positions after recently announcing the selection of England-based company picoChip to supply the key baseband chipset components for their products.

    Femtocells likewise are being evaluated by chipset suppliers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which are examining entry strategies for breaking into the market, as iSuppli reminds.

    According to Sideco, given the inherent use cases and environmental requirements of indoor deployments, self-optimizing networks are essential to the success of femtocells.

    “While technical and commercial challenges remain, femtocells are proving to be viable solutions for players in the wireless industry—especially mobile network operators—seeking to optimize their resources in providing seamless wireless coverage inside indoor environments,” says iSuppli.

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Chris Cox, Product Line Manager at ip.access

    VIDEO INTERVIEW. The first day of the Mobile World Congress was full of interesting conversations for the Smartphone.Biz-news.com reporters. One of them was the interview we did with Chris Cox, Product Line Manager at ip.access.

    At this year’s MWC ip.access is presenting their multi-award winning range of picocells and femtocells, including nano3G picocell, nanoGSM picocell, Oyster 3G technology and various femto services.