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.

Femto's frenzy

In the drive up to Mobile World Congress, there has been ‘femto frenzy’ of press releases. A large chunk of the news has been from UMA-based femtocell players.

Sensing an opportunity to play a significant roll in the market, UMA-based femtocell manufacturers have been aggressive about making the case for UMA as the ‘most viable’ path to standardization of a RAN Gateway/ ‘Iu-over-IP’ architecture.

There are rumors that there may be some operator announcements at MWC regarding UMA-based femtocell trial activities. We’ll be sure to update the site as the news comes in.

1. NEC and Kineto propose approach for rapid femtocell standardization
2. Motorola announces a family of femtocell solutions
3. NEC and NETGEAR team to develop an integrated 3G access point for femtocell solution
4. Kineto ready to support commercial femtocell rollouts
5. NETGEAR and Kineto to showcase 3G femto home access solution at MWC
6. NEC announces trial of femtocell solution with mobile operators
7. Kineto and Ubiquisys announce successful interoperability testing between Zonegate and UNC
8. Femto Forum steps up drive for harmonized network integration

As one insider told me that only "...relentless evidence of practical deployments and practical challenges overcome" will convince the market that UMA is the most viable technology for a femtocell /network integration standard. This looks like the start of some relentless-ness.