So the first 3GPP femtocell plugfest organized by the Femto Forum and ETSI has been deemed to be a success.
The final list of participants includes almost all the key femto ecosystem players. Amongst them Cisco, Huawei and ALU who are network integrators but also have their own femtocell equipment, and therefore their participation is a positive sign. In some sense it looks like the femto ecosystem family came together to make this first event a success.
Also the participation of protocol software providers like Continuous Computing and Node-H proves that the third-party protocol software is standards compliant and is sturdy enough to compete with integrated solutions like those from Airvana, Ubiquisys, ip.access, ALU etc.
Interoperability is an important part of any standards effort and its completion would give operators increased confidence in deploying equipment.
Another positive this week was Ubiquisys announcing that the cost femtocells has gone below $100. This should help with the business case.
While gateway-CPE interoperability is important, majority of the issues seem to be occurring in OSS/BSS integration, CRM, Point of Sale support, provisioning etc. Therefore the plugfest should not be seen as a panacea but more of a basic requirement that vendors will need to meet before they can plug into future femtocell networks.
The final list of participants includes almost all the key femto ecosystem players. Amongst them Cisco, Huawei and ALU who are network integrators but also have their own femtocell equipment, and therefore their participation is a positive sign. In some sense it looks like the femto ecosystem family came together to make this first event a success.
Also the participation of protocol software providers like Continuous Computing and Node-H proves that the third-party protocol software is standards compliant and is sturdy enough to compete with integrated solutions like those from Airvana, Ubiquisys, ip.access, ALU etc.
Interoperability is an important part of any standards effort and its completion would give operators increased confidence in deploying equipment.
Another positive this week was Ubiquisys announcing that the cost femtocells has gone below $100. This should help with the business case.
While gateway-CPE interoperability is important, majority of the issues seem to be occurring in OSS/BSS integration, CRM, Point of Sale support, provisioning etc. Therefore the plugfest should not be seen as a panacea but more of a basic requirement that vendors will need to meet before they can plug into future femtocell networks.
