Femto-fever!

Femtocells have been proclaimed the new holy grail for mobile operators.

By providing improved indoor coverage and cheaper voice & data call rates, all with no additional handset requirement for the consumer, femtocells could well take the wireless industry to happier times. Tipped as a winning FMS (Fixed-mobile substitution) solution, femtocells promise to capture new marketshare for mobile operators, reduce customer churn and facilitate (finally) the take-up of premium mobile data services.

For a change, the business model looks fairly sound, but technological implementation questions remain. Interference issues always creep up when talking about any wireless solution and femtocells are no different. Network integration, QoS and privacy issues remain as well. My take is that these will sort themselves out...a matter of time.

The last few months have seen a lot of activity in this sphere: the setting up of Femto Forum, a body of vendors, operators and other telecom entities pro-femto. Also, Google's $25 Million funding for Ubiquisys, a femtocell vendor, seems to be in line with its overall mobile services strategy which already includes wireless spectrum bids and the development of a mobile-OS.

Exciting times...