There is increasing excitement about the potential for indoor systems
- including femtocells, picocells and WLAN - which could revolutionise
the construction of mobile networks.
Equipment vendors and mobile network operators are busily developing
and evaluating femtocell products and considering how to integrate large
numbers (potentially millions) of femtocells into existing mobile
networks. 3G operators such as Vodafone have already launched femtocell
products.
The success of femtocells is not guaranteed and the cost of failure
could be very high. There are several technical challenges, but mobile
network operators also need to focus on making viable business cases and
delivering successful customer propositions.
Smartphones (such as Apple's iPhone) incorporate WLAN functionality,
allowing mobile services to be accessed using WLAN access points rather
than 3G networks.
We specialise in indoor systems, to understand their true commercial
impact.