3G Home Gateways

Opportunities And Challenges

Publication Date	January 2007
Publisher	Ovum
Product Type	Report
Pages	18
ISBN Number	not applicable
Product Code	OVM00003

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Summary

This report examines residential femtocells, also called cellular home gateways. These are small cellular access points which provide cellular wireless access inside the home and open up new business opportunities for the mobile operator.

3G home gateway solutions are still in their early development stages. As of early 2007, only femtocell prototypes are being used in lab testing. Operators' trials in 2007 will have to analyse two key technical issues: firstly, radio interference between the femtocells and the public infrastructure's macrocells; secondly, the core network integration of femtocells. Should the cellular home gateways be a success, there could be millions of new cellular access points added to cellular networks. There is thus an important scaleability challenge, both in terms of radio management and network architecture.

Included in this report are forecasts for Western Europe and market development scenarios.

Content

Key messages
Definitions
Why put a cellular access point in the home?
- High-level principles of the femtocell concept
- The mobile is used a lot at home
- Benefits of femtocells
- Challenges of developing femtocells
Key requirements
- Network architecture
- Operators will push for a standard
- Femtocell products
- Strategies for operators
Potential business models for operators
- Service strategies
- Business case issues
- Market development scenario
- Femtocell strategies for new entrants
List of figures
- Figure 1 Overview of cell types in cellular networks
- Figure 2 The femtocell concept
- Figure 3 Connect femtocells to the RNC via the Iub interface
- Figure 4 Manage femtocells with concentrators
- Figure 5 Adapt the UMA solution
- Figure 6 SIP/IMS
- Figure 7 Overview of possible business models for femtocells
- Figure 8 Revenues and costs for the femtocell business case
- Figure 9 Femtocell market development scenario
- Figure 10 Residential femtocells in Western Europe