Motorola, Netgear Announce Femtocell Products

• Posted: Tuesday, February 12, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Broadband, Femtocell, Motorola, Wi-Fi

A host of femtocell-related news has come out before this week's 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. Motorola introduced its first 3G femtocell customer premise equipment (CPE) and announced it will release two commercial devices in the second half of the year. Motorola's 8000 Series Femtocell Ethernet Gateway features a four-point Ethernet gateway, VoIP port, USB connections and a WiFi router.

Netgear announced its new Femtocell Voice Gateway that will become available in the first half of this year. Netgear's box includes a residential gateway with integrated ADSL2+ modem, router, 10/100 wired LAN switch, wireless access point, VoIP, firewall and 3G femto technology from Ubiquisys.

Meanwhile, after the Femto Forum announced plans to help harmonize the integration of femtocells into mobile core networks, NEC and Kineto Wireless announced a standards proposal based on the existing 3GPP Generic Access Network (GAN) model. The two companies said a formal standard will help the market achieve mass market success.

Femtocells are mobile access points that connect to a mobile operator's network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections. They have been developed to work with a range of different standards including CDMA, GSM and UMTS.

Femtocells have the potential to make Wi-Fi networks redundant because they use less power and have a longer range. The downside is that such technology will only be available from mobile network operators as they own the licences covering the frequencies that 3G operates in. [FierceBroadbandWireless]

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