Femtocell Standard Is Finalized After Rollouts Happen
It seems the best time to set your technology standards is after the devices have hit the market. At least in the world of Femtocells.
For those unfamiliar with the devices, Femtocells are wireless devices that you can plug into your home Internet connection, and then in turn connect your cell phones to them to make calls over your broadband connection. They effectively give you maximum signal strength virtually anywhere in your home, and mobile carriers love them because it gets you to make calls off of their standard network, relieving some of their load.
According to PCWorld, the 3GPP group, also known as the Femto Forum, have finally come up with a set of standards for Femtocells that cover network architecture, radio and interference, management and provisioning and security. This has been something that has been lacking from the market up until now, and work began on the standards around the first quarter of 2008.
The group hopes that with standardized equipment that they may see the devices move from a niche category into the mainstream as consumers and wireless carriers alike feel more secure in that the equipment won’t be outdated at some unknown date in the future. Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum, added “Our operator members have been insistent that the dozens of approaches to integrating femtocells with mobile operators’ core networks had to be filtered down to a single standard.” He also went to say, “this new standard is crucial in turning the many femtocell operator trials taking place around the world into mass market commercial deployments.”
While it is always a good thing to set up some sort of standards, it makes you wonder about the devices that are already in the marketplace. In August of 2008, Sprint rolled out the Sprint AIRAVE, and just this past January the Verizon Network Extender was released. There is no word as of yet if these devices will be compliant with the new standards, but seeing as Sprint customers actually have to buy the devices on top of a monthly subscription fee, one would certainly hope so.
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