Telefonica group manages many network operators in countries across Europe and South America under the "Moviles" and Movistar brand. It also acquired the O2 group in January 2006, with its operations in UK, Germany, Ireland, Czeck and Slovakia, which continues to operate independently using this brand. Moviles is the brand used in Spain.

History

Their O2 subsiduary has been more public about their trials and views on femtocells.

O2 UK announced one of the larger field trials of femtocells using NEC as the system integrator, and thus Ubiquisys femtocells, claiming that up to 500 users will be testing the devices.The Guardian newspaper reported that trials have already been conducted in Czech Republic (where O2 operates both fixed and mobile networks) and Spain (within Telefonica's own labs).

What's interesting is their focus on office buildings, as stated in their quarterly newsletter

Their CTO, Dave Williams, provides an video interview with his thoughts on femtocells, recorded in February 2008.

• Femto could fit two parts of the market: Coverage and Data Capacity.
• The data explosion we are seeing will require femtocells to offload huge data capacity off the macro network
• Most mobile data will be used in-building
• Two types of wireless data:
  
  • Small Screen (WAP Portal, steadily growing but not amazingly exciting). Apple iPhone is expected to grow this traffic substantially.
  • Mobile Broadband using USB modems has really taken off. Its very simple and competes effectively with DSL. Seen huge demand and capacity requirements on the network.
• To make femtocell technology mass market, it has to be very simple for mass market. Plug it into mains and router, and thats it.
• In some markets, we only provide broadband proposition with our wireless modem
• If we can get that right (making it simple), then it really does become a mass market proposition
• 4 trials underway throughout the group in Spain, UK, Czech Republic. UK trial is with NEC/Ubiquisys
• This technology could be just be what we're looking for.

Telefonica Femtocell Launch in Spain

Huawei were revealed as the vendor. Their standard residential femtocell supports up to 4 concurrent calls. It was later revealed that Alcatel-Lucent are also providing their femtocell solution in parallel.

The service costs 9 Euros/month. A DSL broadband line from Telefonica is required and it must have a minimum download speed of 3Mbit/s.

Telefonica Moviles Femtocell Website

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