The product lifecycle of femtocells involves developing more
functionality and capability as the concept and components are passed
up through a series of vendors and operators to the end customer. We
can see that different technologies are at different stages of this
femtocell product life-cycle as shown in the chart below.
Femtocell Reference Designs
The primary origination of each femtocell design starts with the
specialist chipset designers. Pioneers such as picoChip , who can claim
to have enabled the first generation of 3G femtocells, originally
start with general purpose telecom equipment chipsets and collaborate
with software houses to create a proof-of-concept which demonstrates
the functionality in a working model. These are published as reference
designs, for which application notes are widely available, and shown at
trade shows.
3G Femtocell Products
These reference designs are then built upon by femtocell vendors, who
package up the hardware into attractive consumer devices. Considerable
additional software "smarts" are required to complete the full
femtocell functionality, so that the product is fully self-installing,
reliable and does not interfere with an operators existing outdoor
network. This additional software is the primary differentiator between
femtocell vendors. Some (such as Airvana, Ubiquisys, Radioframe) only provide the standalone femtocell itself,
others (such as Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, ip.access) can also provide the
femto-gateway and management systems.
Femtocell Integration by the Network Operator
These products are then integrated into the operators network by
systems integrators with local presence. Usually lab testing is
followed by field trials where hundreds of "friendly users" (who may be
operator employees) try out the service on a realistic basis.
Once the operator's marketing department has worked out the format and
most appropriate way to bring the product to market (i.e. the format of
the offer to the customer - not just price, but rules, features, etc.),
the operator will need to invest in a significant amount of
backoffice system upgrades. This includes updating the billing,
customer care and operational systems so that the service can be
bought, billed, switched on/off and customer care teams can view the
status of each customer's service. The operations team will need
management systems to identify faults, performance and security. All
departments, from sales, marketing, operations, billing and customer
care, will need training and education about the new product.
For operators who also offer the fixed line broadband service over
which the femtocell is connected, then these staff and their systems
may also require upgrade.
Different technologies are at different stages of the Femtocell Product Lifecycle
2G femtocells, particularly CDMA, have been commercially in service for some months. 3G femtocells have been in trials and are only just now becoming commercially live. LTE femtocell reference designs have only just recently become available.
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