Femtocells touted as vital to LTE success

Femtocells could help operators roll out better performing LTE networks

Femtocells could be key to the successful deployment of next-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G data systems, according to the Femto Forum.

The industry association laid out its case at the LTE World Summit in Berlin for the use of femtocells to provide the best possible LTE experience for users.

The technology will support new services, offer alternative rollout models for operators, and provide an improvement to the mobile broadband business case by lowering network costs while increasing capacity, the group claimed.

"LTE can revolutionise mobile broadband, and femtocells can play a role in helping it to deliver its potential," said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum.

"By adopting femtocells operators can roll out a much better performing LTE network than they could with macro-base stations alone, and at a lower cost and with less risk. All these factors are crucial in the current uncertain economic environment."

Spectrum issues and the harsh economic climate are affecting WiMax deployments, and LTE developers need to avoid the same pitfalls, according to Saunders.

LTE femtocells can help to deliver the best quality of service by improving indoor coverage and lowering contention rates, helping to ensure that users receive peak data rates more of the time, according to the Femto Forum.

Saunders explained that, while femtocells are largely considered for residential use, the technology could complement traditional macro-cell deployments in enterprises, public spaces and hot spots.

Saunders cited Cooper's law, which holds that wireless capacity doubles every 30 months, and highlighted the fact that much of this progress is down to the use of smaller cells, rather than new modulation techniques, better coding or the use of more frequencies.

Femtocells can also help operators maximise the use of their allocated LTE spectrum by giving better in-building coverage for high frequency bands, and extra network capacity for the scarcer and more valuable sub-1GHz bands.

Furthermore, Saunders explained that the platform can help lower costs by introducing savings in cell site installation, maintenance and backhaul costs, as well as enhancing content downloads and streaming media, and introducing a 'presence' element as individual femtocells are aware when a consumer is in the home.

Saunders concluded that, although traditional macro-base stations will still be essential to provide widespread surface coverage, operators can use indoor and outdoor femtocells from the outset to carry substantial amounts of data traffic.