This Korean electronic equipment vendor is probably better known for its range of mobile phones, although does have some infrastructure products. They have been initially focussed on 2G CDMA (which has been popular in North America, Korea and Japan), providing the first commercial femtocells for Sprint and Verizon in the US. Their website provides information on 3G CDMA femtocells as well as a 3G UMTS model.

Launched the Ubicell - CDMA version in production 2007, and announced WCDMA version to be in production 2008. Includes GPS to ensure the system is used only where operator has licenced spectrum. This facility may also be useful for location services including E911 emergency calls. The GPS signal is used for sychronisation, with the initial design incorporating a timing solution from Trimble. The unit therefore may need to be located near a window in order to receive the GPS signal to operate correctly.

Sprint (the US operator)  announced availability in September 2007. This uses 1xRTT and so is ideal for voice, texting and slow/small data usage, but does not support high speed data modes such as EVDO.

US FCC granted approval on 26 April 2007 for their CDMA version used by Sprint - view the certificate here. This states maximum power of 83mW and frequency tolerance of 2.5ppm in the band 1930 to 1990MHz. The test report shows some more detailed photos. Samsung also partnered with ZTE to produce the Home NodeB in February 2007, further details unknown.

Signed a deal with Skyworks in November 2007, who will supply transceivers, amplifiers and other components.

Verizon launched their Wireless Extender with the same Ubicell product in January 2009.

EJL Wireless offer a full design report about this product, listing parts from component suppliers including: Analog Devices, Avago Technologies, AVX Corporation. Cortina Systems, EPCOS, Lattice Semiconductor, Linear Technology, Maxim Integrated Circuits, Murata Electronics Co., Ltd., NEC Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Skyworks Solutions, SST, Texas Instruments & Trimble Navigation.

Samsung offer a complete end-to-end solution for their CDMA femtocell including provisioning and configurations servers, data gateways (PDSN) and other supporting systems. The diagram below (courtesy of Samsung) illustrates their femtocell solution architecture.

• Air Interface IS95 A/B & CDMA2000 1X or WCDMA
• System Capacity 1FA Omni
• Channel Elements 4 traffic channels
• Frequency 1.9GHz
• Output Power Max. 50mw
• Input Voltage 90~250VAC
• Network Interface 10/100 BaseTx Ethernet (xDSL/Cable Modem)
• Weight 1lb

A 3G CDMA version of the Ubicell is slated for commercial availability in 2010. This would offer EV-DO high speed data in addition to basic voice and SMS text.

The Samsung website also illustrates a 3G UMTS femtocell product.