One of the best ways to find out what products are likely to be appearing soon is to ask the component vendors. They can often tell you what requirements are being seen in the market, and have a good idea of what development work is ongoing. Although they can't divulge details about their individual customers, it helps to sense the priorities and focus of the industry.

I had the good fortune to attend the LTE LATAM (Latin America) conference last week in Brazil. LTE is still at an early stage in the region, and there are some spectrum and other issues which may hold back takeup. But with strong demand for mobile data, LTE is seen as an essential part of the solution. Several vendors and operators now openly recognize that small cells have a strong part to play.

Verizon Wireless, the large US cellular network with over 100 million subscribers, filed a request for additional spectrum from the FAA. The 299 page submission explains how they are already planning for small cells, but argues for additional spectrum to meet demand and suggests that small cells can't alone provide the capacity required. Is this true?

Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona each year provides the major event for the industry to get together and network with others. A comparatively small conference, a huge exhibition and even larger set of meeting rooms allows over 60,000 industry participants to promote, share and discuss. With more focus this year on Small Cells, it was a pleasant surprise to see this term accepted as a mainstream part of the future industry direction - many more vendors are happy to use this term than (residential) femtocells. Here's my snapshot of the show from a small cell perspective.

The world’s number one basestation vendor, Ericsson, has gone on record many times to say that the market proposition for femtocells is flawed. They haven’t developed their own, saying that if the market proved worthwhile they would reconsider. Has it now done so?

Picochip is to be bought by Mindspeed for around $50million. While the press release has been widely circulated, there has been relatively little deeper analysis of the deal and the issues surrounding it. Here are some further views, backed up by investor briefings and a call with a Picochip executive.

ABI Research, one of the leading analyst proponents of femtocells, issued a somewhat despondent end of year summary for 2011, noting that the growing number of live commercial femtocell operators wasn't translating into the large number of shipments they had forecast a year or more ago. Their latest market size estimates provide some insight into the size and shape of the femtocell industry today.

With the passing of another year, it’s time to reflect back on the achievements of the last 12 months and consider what awaits us next year. As usual, we compare progress with our predictions from this time last year and make some bold assertions of what’s to come.

The cable TV companies have been in the news a lot recently, with some significant decisions announced that change or reconfirm industry direction. The past week has seen major announcements from Comcast, Time Warner and Cox communications as they release spectrum and wireless network assets. Meanwhile Sprint made some major changes at Clearwire (which they own 50% share of), while Verizon is well placed to take advantage of closer ties with the cable companies. Sprint plans to use Clearwire as part of their LTE solution - we ask if this is the most cost effective approach and consider the implications. 

Manish Singh, CTO of Radisys, shares his industry views on the emerging consensus for small cells to solve the data capacity issue, discusses how different vendors are approaching product development and reveals a surprising aspect of the format and purpose of the first dual-mode 3G/LTE femtocells.

The recent announcement from ip.access of a residential 3G femtocell may have surprised some in the industry. As part of one of the world’s largest femtocell deployments at AT&T, surely they already had this capability? How does this new product position alongside their existing 2G and Cisco solutions? We dug a bit deeper to find out more.

Few commentators seem to have spotted that SFR’s free femtocell offer may be a pre-emptive competitive strike against Illiad, who had earlier announced a similar scheme. The French market will be closely watched by others, keen to see if this attractive offer of free femtocells is a market disruptor.

Will SFR’s recent announcement of free femtocells change the market and become an example for the rest of the market?

Googlemaps must be one of the most popular apps for smartphones these days. It’s particularly useful when finding your way on foot around a new city or part of town. It’s also popular at home and in the office to lookup places to visit. But despite being an outstanding app, there remain some real issues when using it both for location accuracy and data capacity.

The BBC conducted a survey of 3G coverage in the UK and recently published their results. They do warn it’s not completely scientific and that the data should be interpreted with caution, but it does point out shortcomings in 3G coverage around the country. The test used a smartphone application to measure and report 3G signal availability, with results collated centrally. Data testing firm Epitiro, who also supply wireline broadband performance measuring systems, provided the system itself. 44,600 volunteers  ran the application and contributed to the study, which operated across all UK networks. I expect similar results might be observed in many other countries.

Tatara Systems, a leading provider of a pivotal component for 3G CDMA femtocells, has recently been acquired. We wanted to understand more, and spoke to both companies about the move. We wanted to know if Taqua are as committed to femtocells, whether the business strategy will change, and whether this is a sign of Tatara’s success or failure.

The digital village pump concept is based around providing good broadband services to remote rural areas that otherwise wouldn't get them. A fiber connection to the central distribution point is then shared between wireline and wireless connections in the nearby area. Combined with rural femtocells, the approach provides a cost effective means to reach more remote customers.

Apple has announced a number of new features in their next major release of operating system for the iPhone and iPad due out in September. IOS 5 adopts the cloud computing strategy and removes the need for users to run iTunes on their home computer. But it will also place stringent demands on wireless connectivity. Will these create a stronger use case for femtocells?

With all the flurry of Femtocell World Summit in recent weeks, one major announcement may have slipped by unnoticed. In what could become one of the largest femtocell deployments worldwide, the innovative French residential triple-play provider – Free – announced it would offer femtocells to all its 4 million customers at no charge (presumably they have to signup for their mobile service though). They are due to launch 3G mobile service early next year as the new fourth operator in France, and this could give them a distinct advantage as well as quickly becoming the largest femto deployment worldwide.

In the femtocell industry you again find a small number of solution providers with whom the major operators will do business. These provide the reassurance, scale and range of services to reduce risk. Network operators seeking to trial or launch femtocells will typically have gone through an RFP (Request for Proposal) process with several of them. There are also a few smaller new entrants who have bypassed this arrangement due to special circumstances. Whether the mainstream approach will change as the market matures remains to be seen.

We don't normally publish interviews with the same people in a short space of time, but the surprise announcement of RadiSys purchasing Continuous Computing was too good to miss. Here, Manish Singh, VP of Product Line Management at Continuous Computing, answers some popular questions on the reasons behind the acquisition, explains who will be running the new combined business and the impact it will have on their customers – especially those using Trillium software in their femtocell products today.