Cisco, the world's best known internet equipment provider, supplies many of the high capacity routers used within the Internet backbone. It also has divisions such as Linksys supplying smaller products for enterprise and domestic markets, including set-top boxes which are likely to incorporate femtocell technology in the future.

It addresses the femtocell market by providing a complete end-to-end solution, based on ip.access femtocell products. Cisco routers are used as part of the femtocell gateway while their broadband management system handles femtocells as well as domestic routers and modems . Their only public commercially deployed customer to date is AT&T which brand this as their 3G Microcell.

Cisco's solution consists of four major components:

• Femtocell access points
• ASR5000 Femtocell Gateway
• Cisco Broadband Access Gateway
• Femtocell Management Centre

Femtocell Access Points

It had made a strategic investment in a leading independent femtocell vendor - UK based ip.access in January 2008. ATT's 3G Microcell is clearly badged as a Cisco product, with ip.access not mentioned in any of the publicity.

The unit shown on the right is their standard residential femtocell, supporting 4 concurrent calls. Other physical formats and colours are available. More product details are available from the Cisco website

Cisco Femtocell Gateway

Their wireless access gateway is marketed as being appropriate to use within a femtocell gateway. It is unclear if it is used for this purpose by any femtocell gateway vendor, there are no press releases or publicity to verify this.

Cisco Broadband Access Gateway

The BAC is used by over 150 service providers worldwide to manage routers and modems for both residential and enterprise customers. With support for standards based femtocell provisioning and management, the same BAC can be used to handle femtocells and simplify the back office integration. It supports auto-provisioning of individual units.

Femtocell Management Centre

This provides operational support including fault and performance management for the femtocell subsystem.

Further Information

Cisco's website has a dedicated section for femtocells and also provides full details of their complete solution

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