With 2011 now well underway, the femtocell industry is gearing up for the annual MWC jamboree in Barcelona. While much of the industry was relatively quiet over the festive period, there have still been some interesting developments in the past month.
- ABI issued a report commenting on the growing interest in Femtozone Applications and their potential for mobile operators. The report details the use of femto attributes such as location and presence to trigger innovative applications residing on the mobile device, in the access point, the core gateway or the cloud.
- The New York Times reported on the issues faced in providing mobile coverage in tall buildings and discussed femtocell technology as the solution.
- Telecompaper reported that Vodafone Italy has announced a femtocell service, with devices available to businesses and consumers from the spring and initial trials taking place now.
- Parks Associates has released research undertaken for the Femto Forum, which showed that 60% of global consumers express an interest in owning a femtocell, with improved indoor voice coverage serving as the main driver. The survey included 6,100 consumers across China, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- Finally, this week Light Reading reported that T-Mobile US is planning to offer “3G femtocells as part of its product portfolio in 2011.” This would mean that all of the major US mobile operators would then be active in the femtocell space.
The next four weeks will no doubt see a flurry of exciting developments in the industry. Look out for more femtocell news as and when it happens, and leave us a comment if you’ve spotted anything interesting too.
