3G Femtocells - Think Femtocell

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Femtocells are very small mobile phone receivers, used in the home or office and connected by broadband internet

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Technology

Radio Technologies

3G Femtocells

Written by David Chambers
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
The most common type of femtocell is based on 3rd Generation UMTS mobile phone system, which evolved from GSM. This 3G system has been enhanced to include high speed broadband data (called HSPA) at rates up to 21Mbit/s with a roadmap that promises rates of 84Mbit/s.A typical 3G femtocell is shown on the left - this is the Zonegate product from Ubiquisys. 3G femtocells like this are compatible with operators such as T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, SoftBank in Japan and most mobile operators in the rest of the world. It is this wide adoption of the GSM family of standards (over 87% of all mobile phones are GSM capable) that makes this the most attractive market for vendors. As with other femtocells, these units are similar is size and power consumption to a WiFi access point - typically the size of a paperback book and consuming around 5 Watts. They connect to your broadband internet modem, using an Ethernet cable and provide very localised, low power mobile phone service in your home or office. Typical maximum RF power levels are around 50mW, less than many cordless phone systems. They are compatible with any 3G phone or broadband data dongle and can support up to 4 simultaneous voice calls and/or many data sessions. The limiting factor tends to be more around the capacity of the wireline broadband internet connection (especially the uplink), which is one reason for determining the maximum voice capacity at 4 simultaneous calls. 3G Femtocells have also been incorporated into broadband DSL modems, with vendors such as Netgear and Thomson developing units which combine DSL, Firewall, WiFi, Ethernet Router and 3G Femtocell capabilities in a single box. These are targetted at operators with both fixed and mobile divisions, so they can offer a converged solution at the most cost effective price. 3G Femtocells offer: Up to 4 simultaneous voice calls Shared data capacity of 3.6Mbit/s or 7.2Mbit/s between many mobile broadband data devices Overall lower costs to the network operator than building more outdoor cellsites, which can be passed on to customers Keep informed of femtocell thinking. Signup to our monthly newsletter, receive new articles by email or subscribe with RSS and geta FREE ebook! Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Website Title Comment Write the displayed characters
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 11 November 2008 )

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