I thought a quick reminder of who has launched commercial service, and which vendors they are using might be in order. These all relate to domestic commercial services, available to customers to buy in shops and/or online today.

I’d previously included China Unicom and Softbank Japan in this list, but have removed them on the basis that these are market trials and not widely available in shops and online.

Will there be 10 operators before the end of the year? Let’s wait and see. In many Western countries, networks undergo a period of lockdown over the Christmas holiday period where major network upgrades are deferred, so I wouldn't be too hopeful of reaching that target.

Trials have been reported for many operators around the world, and many more are underway  (or have completed) without publicity. These involve stages from lab trials (simply offering a box to test in a research lab), through to trial network deployment, friendly user trials/field trials, and limited market trials. At each stage, different technical and commercial aspects can be evaluated.

Companies publicly announced to have trialled femtocells include (in no particular order)

• Telefonica O2,UK
• TDC,Denmark
• Mobilkom,Austria
• T-Mobile,Germany
• Softbank,Japan
• China Unicom,China
• Maxis,Malaysia
• China Mobile,China
• Chungwha,Taiwan
• TeliaSonera,Sweden
• TIM,Italy
• Portugal Telecom,Portugal
• Comcast,USA (WiMAX)
• Cellcom,Wisconsin USA (CDMA)
• Fgup Znis Technopark (Russian central research and development institute of communications),Russia

Additionally, there are quite a few operators who are members of the Femto Forum and are not listed above. Whether they are actively running femtocell trials or not is not publicly known. (But you can tell us in the comment form below or drop me an email if you know otherwise)

Comments (2)

Paul Monus said:

Verizon wireless network extender scandal I purchased a Verizon wireless network extender after talking to Verizon tech support and being assured it would work in Alaska. Verizon has no network in Alaska, all Verizon subscribers roam on the extended network provided by ACS (Alaska Communications Systems) as partner. The Verizon network extender came by mail, and I installed it per instructions so my wife's Verizon phone (which I'd urged her to dump in of something that works better here) could get adequate signal in our house. I hooked the Verizon wireless network extender to my high speed broadband router, and tried it. It did not work. After reading all the help guide and talking to many Verizon tech support people, it became clear that Verizon requires a Verizon network tower to be visible to the Network Extender before it allows it to talk to cell phones. I later was told by a number of Verizon people, including several Verizon supervisors, that despite the fact that all calls would be routed through the internet, there must be a Verizon tower visible to the Network extender for it to work. I was befuddled, as the essential reason I purchased the device was to make up for the LACK of network towers in range of our house. They told me that despite the internet connection, all calls would be routed from my wife's cell phone to the network extender and then from that to the Verizon tower and network, not via the internet. I then asked why the internet connection was needed - they did not give any answer that made sense. I don't know if they were uninformed or deliberately lying about how the device works. I suspect the latter. Even if the device would charge cell minutes used by Verizon cell phone use routed through the internet to some backhaul gateway in a location where Verizon has network (not Alaska) this would have been ok by me. So that objection others have cited is not my issue. My issue is that they prevented the device from operating at all, even though it could have worked here, for some unexplained reason. Icing on the cake... I paid shipping charges to bring the non-functional by design device to Alaska, and then again to return it to Verizon. They had the gall to charge me 'restocking charges' of 20% to return the device, despite their misinforming me of its ability to work up here prior to my purchasing it. Despite several tries to get Verizon to refund this money, they refused, and to date it has not occurred. So when Verizon says, 'it's the network' there is special meaning for me. This shows me that VOIP and what MagicJack is doing is exactly what we need - they will kill with their new device. All the money that Verizon spent for locking up freed up spectrum to build redundant CDMA capacity will be nothing if the internet continues to grow. I use SKYPE on my iPhone and PCs to talk online for all calls at home - better call quality and far less expensive. You aren't supposed to talk on the cell phone when driving anyway, so once wifi is more pervasive, there will be hordes of people who abandon traditional cell phones for new approaches like MagicJack is pioneering will grow exponentially (my sense). Imagine every coffeshop and wifi location having their own MagicJack hub. How much on the hoof Verizon network would one need, in that case? Paul Monus Anchorage, Alaska This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

report abuse vote down vote up

January 09, 2010
Votes: +0

ThinkFemtocell said:

Thanks for the detailed feedback Thanks for taking the time to share your femtocell experience with our readers. As you've discovered, femtocells operate in licensed spectrum and so cannot legally be used outside areas owned by their network operator. This includes taking them abroad as well as parts of the US where coverage is provided through roaming partners. It does seem that there is an opportunity here for improved information and training of sales and customer care staff. Don't lose hope however. I note that GCI, the Alaskan telco, is a Femto Forum member and so may be quite likely to offer their own femtocell service at some point.

report abuse vote down vote up

January 10, 2010
Votes: -1