"Femto" on the ropes

They say bad news comes in threes, and in the last three weeks, femtocells have had their three strikes.

First was the announcement a week before Mobile World Congress that the venerable “Femto Forum” was changing its name to the “Small Cells” Forum. What’s the difference? Primarily that ‘femtocell’ has become a bad word in mobile, whereas Wi-Fi has suddenly become a darling in the industry. With the name change, Wi-Fi and femtos can share the stage under a Small Cell umbrella.

Second, during MWC, Huawei announces they are getting out of the femtocell equipment game. Huawei was an early, aggressive and award-winning player in the femto market, but as Lars Bonderlind, VP of Wireless Networks Marketing explains, "it's very difficult to build a business case with femtocells."

This is brings Huawei in line with industry stalwart Ericsson who consistently played down (or downright dismissed) femtocells, who recently put it’s money where it’s mouth is by buying carrier-grade Wi-Fi equipment provider Bel Air Networks.

Then today the third strike hits – DoCoMo announced it has suspended femtocell 'services'. While they will continue to provide femtocells FREE to certain customers with coverage problems, and they have come to the conclusion that people don't want to pay extra to get add services out of their femto.

Affordable Androids Abound

Android devices are showing distinct signs of picking up speed, as evidenced by Orange's recent announcement it will launch a low-cost LG Android smartphone in Europe later this year.

Orange also reveals its new 'affordable smartphone strategy,' which includes Huawei, ZTE and Gigabyte devices, among others. Lowering smartphone costs will make services more accessible to a larger group of subscribers. So it appears it will be a win-win for Orange - top-notch phones on a strong operating system pulling in more subscribers.

Patrick Remy, Orange's vice president of devices, said: "At the beginning of 2010, 15% of Orange portfolio was smartphones. This will rise to 30% by the end of the year, and will be 50% by 2013."

That seems right in line with the smartphone growth analysts are predicting and other operators are reporting globally.

Four Out of Five Agree: UMA for Femtocells

Before MWC, I wrote about the incredible amount of UMA-based femtocell news, calling it a ‘femto frenzy’ of activity.

Within the world of femtocells, there are a chosen few committed to the existing 3GPP UMA/GAN standard. All of the other systems/solutions are proprietary. The “UMA-enabled Femtocell” world consists of many key players:

- Solution provider NEC
- Solution provider Motorola
- Femtocell provider Ubiquisys
- Femtocell provider Motorola
- Femtocell provider Netgear

So, let’s count the number of announced operator femtocell trials and see where UMA is involved:

1. During MWC, pan-European mobile operator O2 announced they were conducting a femtocell trial with NEC.

2. Also during MWC, Scandinavian provider Telia announced a femtocell trial based with Motorola.

3. Then just this week, an article from Fierce Wireless editor Brian Dolan suggests that T-Mobile International will be trialing Ubiquisys femtocells with NEC.

4. Softbank in Japan has announced trials with nearly every supplier on the market, including Ubiquisys, NEC and Motorola.

5. The only other announced trial I’m aware of is Vodafone Group’s announcement to trial Alcatel/Lucent and Huawei, clearly not a UMA-based trial.

Unless I’m mistaken (which I’m sure you’ll to tell me if I am):

Four out of five femtocell trials include a UMA-based system.

This reminds me of the old Trident gum ad where “four out of five dentists agree…”

I attribute this to a couple of reasons:

- It works. Novel but true. UMA has been commercially deployed for more than two years.

- Operators actually want a standard interface. As much as Alcatel/Lucent, Huawei, and even Nokia/Siemens are trying to push their own proprietary approaches, the operators have had enough. They want an open, public standard interface for femtocells.

- UMA does more than one thing. After deploying a femtocell service, a mobile operator may want to add a fixed line VoIP service (like T-Mobile US). The same UMA infrastructure supports that, or dual-mode phones, or softmobiles.

Next, let's see if we can get to 9 out of ten...

[UPDATE MARCH 20] Good posted on ThinkFemto about a similar topic. I have a bit more detail. For some reason, ThinkFemto decided to throw in a bunch of picocell wins that ip.Access got, but they aren't femtocells.