Femtocell Architecture – Doing All The Right Things

Implications: Now this is how a standard proposal is rapidly promoted and adopted.

Analysis: I applaud the femtocell advocates for going to 3GPP and settling what could have been a sticky issue for all carriers and vendors.

This is how carriers and vendors should get a standard done quickly.  The Femto Forum is a non-standards setting body that s comprised of carriers and vendors.  The typical forum’s job is to promote technology by marketing it like mad and to recommend technology standards to the appropriate standards setting body.  The Femto Forum has done all the right things.

Unlike the LTE gang’s initial efforts, the Femto Forum has facilitated an environment of cooperation.  Even better, the Femto Forum recently teamed with the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGN) Alliance in order to begin investigations into the use of femtocells I next gen networks.

Bottom line to investors – femtocell’s will likely see its first standard within a year.

Not having a standard has never stopped manufacturers from selling equipment.  However, having standardized equipment greatly mitigates the risk of a carrier getting stuck with equipment that does not interoperate with existing systems or with other femtocell systems.

All of this is good news for investors.