Wi-Fi in Smartphones Growing

ABI Research’s latest FMC report forecasts handset voice connections for business customers will rise from 6.3 million in 2009 to more than 27 million by 2014. FMC voice connections include Wi-Fi FMC connections as well as cellular FMC connections using picocells and femtocells

As reported by Fierce Wireless, practice director Dan Shey said: "While femtocells have been all the rage, dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi phones will also increase enterprise FMC voice access."

The report also stated Wi-Fi in smartphones will grow from a 45% attach rate in 2009 to a 90% attach rate in 2014. Business customers are the primary adopters of smartphones and with increased penetration of Wi-Fi smartphones, this change levels the playing field between cellular and Wi-Fi FMC.

A number of analyst firms have issued positive forecasts for the FMC market in recent months, including Infonetics.

The flood of smartphones on the market is enabling business customers to have their pick of exciting devices, features and apps, and there’s still lots of room to grow.

Buy the full report here.

Nokia's VoIP Aspirations

Nokia’s lack of support for UMA in handsets, exacerbated by the latest research that they are 50% of the market for dual-mode Wi-Fi phones , has long been a frustration for the UMA community.

On the other hand, Nokia actively pushes their SIP client in devices, with a table listing devices and discussion framework.

The difference is that UMA/GAN is a technology which route VoIP calls to (and through) the mobile operator.

Whereas SIP is used by everyone but the mobile operator, primarily third party VoIP companies like Fring and Truphone.

Clearly Nokia believes in Mobile VoIP, but just not mobile VoIP for their primary customer base, the mobile operators.

All this got me thinking, why would Nokia work so hard to put SIP into their handsets when SIP isn’t used by any mobile operator today?

Nanoradio Turns On UMA

Nanoradio is a Swedish-based fabless semiconductor supplier that has developed a unique WLAN chipset which features ultra-low power consumption, the smallest package (their claim) and ‘unique’ support for audio applications.

If you think this would be perfect for a UMA-enabled handset, apparently you’re not alone.

Today Nanoradio issued a press release stating its technology is in the world’s first 3G UMA handset. At first I thought they meant the Sony Ericsson G705u, but in fact they were talking about the Samsung P270, quietly announced in Orange’s press release about expanding Unik to support 3G devices.

In a follow-on article, the company refers to an as yet unannounced UMA device, the Samsung P250. Excellent.

The article also mentioned that the Nanoradio ‘…Wi-Fi solution doubles the standby and talktime...’ when in UMA. Not bad, considering UMA already outperforms cellular for some RIM devices.

From the company’s web site, Nanoradio suggests its WLAN chip uses just 6mW in a voice call, compared with 37mW for Bluetooth 1.2 and 50 mW for Bluetooth 2.0. Very impressive.

It’s clear that Nanoradio is dispelling the myths about Wi-Fi being power hungry. With ABI Research predicting more than 300 million dual-mode phones in the coming years, the future looks very bright.

How big is it?

The market for femtocells, that is.

Last week saw the release of data from ABI Research touting nearly 150m femtocell subscribers worldwide in 2012.

Then on Monday IDC announced its own research, touting 5.7m subscribers in 2011. Granted those are only ‘western Europe’ numbers, but there is a HUGE gap between the numbers.

Suppose we assume that 1/3 of the ABI number is Western Europe. That is an order of magnitude (50m to 5.7m) difference in projections.

Wow.

So, how big is the market for femtocells? It will take a while to see if the technology can live up to the hype. But for now, it looks like all systems are go. RFPs are coming at a rapid pace and vendors are fighting for position.

All of this is very good news for UMA, because it is the de-facto standard for integrating 5m or 150m femtocells into the mobile core network.

PS - the image is Godzilla vs King Kong, in a 'rematch where size really does matter'. Does Godzilla look 10 times larger than King Kong?