Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Femtocells to Dominate Fixed-Mobile Convergence Market

Mobile operators are now making key and far-ranging decisions about the future of their consumer fixed-mobile convergence services. While enterprise FMC services are clearly following the route of VCC- and SIP-enabled solutions, consumer FMC services will take one of two major paths, based on each mobile operator's view of the market, and the nature of its existing network assets.

According to ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis, "Today, consumer FMC services that are based on Wi-Fi use UMA to manage the connection choice and handover between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. These services are ramping up quickly in Europe, due to intense competition between Orange, BT, and other mobile operators. In North America, T-Mobile USA is about to go nationwide with its UMA-based FMC service as well."

"However," adds research director Stuart Carlaw, "mobile operators such as Vodafone, SFR, Softbank, and Sprint are at the leading edge among carriers exploring femtocell technologies. With their ability to work with any handset, and their potential for encouraging high data use, femtocells are very attractive when compared to VCC and UMA-based Wi-Fi services."