1. Service Provider Mobility: Enterprise
Femtocells: Easy to Underestimate
Posted by Will Franks Jun 17, 2009
Enterprise femtocells, forming a grid of self-organising coverage, are genuinely new. So it's
not surprising that they are often misunderstood.
On one hand they offer the low cost and self-install simplicity of enterprise WiFi. Yet
they also offer all the benefits of 3G cellular with massive data capacity. This is a heady
combination, and promises to make in-building cellular affordable for small companies
because the femtocells are based on mass-produced hardware, because no radio planning
is required and because they can be self installed by the IT guys. They also promise to
multiply the uptake of in-building cellular in large enterprises by providing added flexibility
and simplicity at a fraction of the cost of today's manually engineered pico/DAS systems.
John Spindler, in his article for Wireless Week, makes a couple of familiar assumptions
about enterprise femtocells, which I'm happy to put right.
ASSUMPTION 1: MINIMUM COVERAGE OVERLAP
The first assumption is that a grid of enterprise femtocells has minimal coverage overlaps.
It doesn't. In fact the femtos deliberately organise themselves into a grid with extensive
overlaps.
Interference
What femtocells do that's different to picocells is manage interference themselves in real-
time rather than rely on the complex RF engineering that would otherwise be required. The
femtocells obey the policies set by the mobile operators so will never produce unmanaged
interference between each other or with the macro network. For example, femtocells in the
grid use algorithms to ensure maximum spatial diversity between scrambling codes.
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2. Service Provider Mobility: Enterprise Femtocells: Easy to Underestimate
Signal dominance
Making the wrong assumption about coverage overlap leads to worrying about phones flip-
flopping in and out of the macro network. But enterprise femtocells provide a strong indoor
signal and also hold onto phones using "sticky cell" technology. Together these ensure that
flip-flopping doesn't happen, and that's true of any 3G phone.
ASSUMPTION 2: UNDERESTIMATING FEMTOCELL CAPABILITY
The second assumption is that femtocells can support only a handful of calls and have a
range which is a fraction of a picocell. Not quite: enterprise femtocells can range in capacity
from 8-16+ users, and each one has a range approaching today's picocells.
Handovers
Femtocells in the grid don't need to do soft handovers because of strong cell overlap, and
they don't have to handover very often because their range is not far short of picocells.
There is always a battery life penalty when handing-over, but this is more than offset by the
massive reduction in handset transmit power. In any case additional battery consumption
only occurs when on a call, not when the phone is moving but idle. So the net effect is a
major boost in battery life over the macro network.
Over-provisioning?
In a grid of enterprise femtocells every femto handles not a handful of users but 8 or
16 or more - providing robust coverage and high capacity throughout the building. Most
importantly, it does so more cost-effectively than Pico/DAS solutions that require radio
engineers to deploy them.
The bottom line...
Ever wondered why wifi access points tend to be installed in a modular fashion,
rather than in a pico/DAS-style hierarchy? The answer is because they can be - it's
simpler, easier and cheaper. And the same is true of enterprise femtocells.
457 Views Tags: femtocell, ubiquisys
Jun 17, 2009 12:48 PM Kittur Nagesh
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3. Service Provider Mobility: Enterprise Femtocells: Easy to Underestimate
Thanks Will for triggering the discussion on Femtocells. We believe that Femto is critical to
scaling the mobile internet, especially as it transforms to higher performance via HSPA+,
LTE, etc.
Can you comment on the impact of Femtocells on overall Mobile SP frequency planning? I
thought we had not yet reached "plug-and-play" Femto deployments.
And of course, there is the business model aspects of Femto. Who really pays for it?
What have you seen on these fronts? Thanks again!
Nagesh
Jun 23, 2009 9:09 AM ajay_sahai Kittur Nagesh in response to
According to Lightreading - Vodafone will launch femto in UK from July 1. Exciting. But
seems to be a very voice coverage centric offering. Not sure why they are underselling the
benefits of femto to indoor coverage for mobile data service. Quite similar to Sprint. In that
case it was a 2.5G femto so it is clear.
Not sure what is the reason for VF to do this in a market like UK. Is it because of some
limitations in their femto/concerns about the femto technology or is it because they don't
want to get into backhaul traffic debates with the ISP's....
Jun 24, 2009 11:13 AM Will Franks Kittur Nagesh in response to
Yes we are at "plug-and-play". I think well demonstrated by Vodafone announcing their
launch. On frequency planning femtocells work on the bases of managed interference.
Being aware and able to adapt to their radio environment is what fundamentally makes them
different from picocells.
Most deployments will be sharing frequencies with the macro network, usually the second or
third carrier.
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4. Service Provider Mobility: Enterprise Femtocells: Easy to Underestimate
On business model it depends on what the "Offer" is for the Carrier i.e. Coverage, Churn
reduction, home tariff, enterprise, etc. As an example on churn, subscriber acquisition costs
around $400 in Europe. Churn is around 35% per year. So you can see for every customer
a Carrier can stop from churning they have up to $400 to spend per year.
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