Singapore’s StarHub launches world’s first commercial 3G femtocell service
StarHub’s ‘Home Zone’ femtocell is currently limited to the first 200 subscribers, so it’s perhaps more of a market trial than a full commercial launch. It’s similar in principle to Sprint’s trial of the AIRAVE, which was initially limited to a couple of US cities. But Home Zone is actually being sold to real consumers paying real money, so StarHub does deserve the headlines. Here are the highlights:
Tariff:
“The beauty of the 3G femtocell technology is that all 3G-enabled phones are supported and customers do not need to purchase special handsets to take advantage of it,” said Mr Anil Nihalani, Head of Mobile and Communications at StarHub.
“SFR says it’s too early to communicate on detailed commercial offers. However it is possible to imagine all the possibilities that this technology would open up: like cheaper or free calls when the subscriber calls from the femto, or a community-based development like FON: open up your femto to others, and use other femtos for free. Femtos would also be ideal to bring 3G coverage in areas with poor or no coverage. However the regulator will certainly have comments on such a peculiar use of 3G licenses, while associations fighting the installation of large antennas will certainly be incensed by the multiplication of small ones.”
[Thanks to Thierry Samama for the French translation - never my best subject at school.]
Gartner says we’ve reached the peak of the femto hype cycle
“At present, Gartner assesses femtocells to be at the peak of inflated expectations,” said Foong King Yew, Gartner’s research director for telecommunications. Gartner invented the famous technology hype cycle, which predicts a period of disappointed expectations following the early hype surrounding any new technology innovation. In an interview with ZDNet Asia, Foong said it would take another two to five years for femtocells to mature, but that they are “a promising technology over the longer term”.
EU issues power consumption guidelines for femtocells
Version 3 of the EU ‘Code of Conduct on Energy Consumption of Broadband Equipment’ mentions femtocells for the first time. It recommends that femtocells should consume less than 9 Watts in 2009 and less than 8 Watts in 2011. This shouldn’t present too big a challenge; for example the ip.access Oyster 3G femtocell is already at about 8 Watts, and Ubiquisys says its ZoneGate femtocell also already complies with the 2011 target.
How does 900 MHz spectrum re-farming impact the femtocell business case?
Ram Krishnan asks a good question here. If operators clear out some of their GSM 900 MHz spectrum and use it for 3G, as Elisa has done in Finland, will there be any need for femtocells? 900 MHz propagates further than 2.1 GHz, so operators can save costs by using fewer basestations to cover more area. This makes it easier for an operator to extend its network coverage in rural areas, which means there should be fewer subscribers who need a femtocell due to lack of macro network coverage in their region. On the other hand, I believe it’s true that 900 MHz signals don’t penetrate buildings any better than 2.1 GHz, so it shouldn’t follow that femtocells are unnecessary. And an even more important argument for femtocells is that they add capacity to the network, which is not solved by re-farming 900 MHz spectrum.
Epitiro recommends voice quality testing
Voice quality test equipment maker Epitiro has published a Femtocell Deployment Guide, showing the performance of IPsec traffic in real-world situations. “Cellular operators need to understand that residential broadband service can vary significantly by time of day, day of week and by type of traffic,” said JP Curley, Epitiro’s CTO. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Curley recommends that operators should deploy, erm, voice quality test equipment (so that they can measure and monitor voice quality for their femtocell customers), and that they should consider negotiating Service Level Agreements with ISPs. Fair enough - this may well be a good idea.  In practice, I haven’t yet seen any complaints about voice quality from femtocell customers (in fact, most of the AIRAVE reviews suggest that voice quality is better than on the macro network, despite the fact that Sprint has no control over the residential broadband connection). Maybe we’ve just been lucky so far?
Airvana sees consumer demand for femtocells
Like other femtocell vendors, Airvana is getting inquiries from consumers wanting to buy femtocells. This interesting Femto Hub posting exposes some commonly held misconceptions. Top of the list: femtocells bypass the wireless carrier’s network. Second: femtocells provide a home broadband connection (nope, that’s the ‘dongle dock’).
Femtocells - already a legacy!
I love the reference to “Legacy FAP” in figure 1 of this article on femtocell security issues. Presumably those are the ones using the ‘legacy Iu-h standard’, which hasn’t quite been finished yet 
In other news…
Filed under: Market updates | Tagged: Oyster 3G, ip.access, femtocells, Femtocell, hype cycle, Airvana, picoChip, Ubiquisys, Continuous Computing, Aricent, Percello, StarHub, SFR, Epitiro, Huawei, Gartner, Home Zone, power consumption, EU, 900 MHz re-farming, ZoneGate, BroadLight | No Comments »
