A new generation of mobile phone equipment is being developed that could see a cellular basestation in every household.
Several companies are working on design for femtocells – small basestations that handle up to four users, connect to the network via broadband phone lines and provide both improved reception for 3G phones and new services such as low cost calls and data access such as TV services from home.
The key is that these use the existing 3G and GSM technology, rather than hybrids of GSM and Wireless LAN technology which are used today. This means that the femtocell is compatible with all existing 3G handsets so subscribers can enjoy the benefits of high-speed data at home without the need for new
dual-mode phones.
“By 2011 there are forecast to be 102 million femtocell users and femtocells look set to be an integral part of the operator push into fixed-mobile converged services whilst also providing considerable benefits in terms of in-building wireless coverage, capacity gain and shaping user behaviour,” said Stuart Carlaw, Principal Analyst at market researchers ABI Research.
The challenge is to make these small enough, low power and simple enough to be set through the post so that users can plug the units in themselves. These also have to be ‘self provisioning’, setting up automatically across the network, as the user will not know how to do this. So a new generation of hardware, software and service technology is being developed to tackle this.
One of the companies at the forefront is Ubiquisys, based in Swindon in the South West of the UK, which has signed up a new CEO and closed a US$12m round of funding that will lead to the company almost doubling in size over the next year.
Chris Gilbert, previously the US-based CEO of Chippenham-based IP Wireless, is driving the development of the ZoneGate femtocells modules and software that will be standalone units and also integrated into DSL routers allow 3G phones to be used in the home and connect up through DSL lines. The modules then connect to a server that links to the relevant mobile phone operator, and this needs a wide range of engineering skills, from hardware to embedded software and systems expertise.
“With IPWireless I was based in Silicon Valley and I was really impressed at the quality of engineers here and how quick it was to get them on board,” said Gilbert.
The available skills are vital to the development, says Will Franks, one of the founders and CTO. “There is a rich seam of expertise here in the area and we are having to pull together expertise across a number of sectors, from the silicon with picoChip chips, infrastructure people from Lucent and Motorola and then we also need people from the mobile handset side,” he said.
The company started in a small business incubator in Swindon and now has 35 people. With the US$12m from Accel Partners, Advent Venture Partners and Atlas Venture, it is expanding to 55 engineers, but it will also continue to seek funding for new projects such as a version for GSM handsets.
“Many mobile operators now believe femtocells represent the future of in-building coverage,” said Martin McNair, General Partner of Advent Venture Partners. “However, most available products are too costly for residential use and cannot be connected, provisioned and managed remotely over DSL or cable. UbiquiSys has combined RF and broadband expertise to create a compelling product, at a mass-market price point, that is in operator control at all times.”
“We are hoping to be in trails with operators by Q2 of next year and in full scale production in Q3 or Q4, so it's a very compressed timescale,” said Gilbert.
ip.access of Cambridge is also developing a femtocell design. The Femto3G builds on ip.access’ experience in delivering cellular-over-IP systems to mobile carriers around the world. The key component of the system is the femto3G Access Point, a small low-cost consumer device that integrates into the operator’s existing 3G radio access network using the customer’s broadband connection to provide high quality low cost 3G services in the home.
The femto3G is the basis for a pure-play cellular approach to enabling fixed-mobile convergence to serve both small enterprise and home access markets. It enables cellular operators to localise and control competitive tariffs for mobile calls in the home, while calls outside the home hand over seamlessly to 3G macro-network coverage and tariffs.
“Our aim in developing femto3G is to enable cellular operators to offer mobile users seamless roaming and single-phone convenience at attractive fixed-line prices,” said Stephen Mallinson, CEO of ip.access. “With the improved service quality enabled by femto3G and its low cost architecture, ip.access is taking the lead in helping cellular operators to continue fixed-mobile substitution and accelerate 3G adoption in the residential market.”
Both companies are using technology from Bath-based programmable processor array designer picoChip.
They are using the PC202 picoArray to support the requirements of WCDMA and HSDPA modem implementation, which includes an ARM processor to run the sophisticated control code and the network-integration software.
“Working with picoChip to customise their software-defined radio technology helps us to achieve high performance, flexibility and the ability to differentiate and scale our solution,” said Mallinson at ip.access.
The PC202 consists of the picoArray of 248 separate processors with several application accelerators for forward error correction, FFT/IFT, and encryption, all of which helps to keep the power consumption down. The array is configured via a programmable interconnect at compile time, so changes and upgrades can be easily made during development, but the same devices are also low cost and low power enough for the high volume consumer femtocell market.
An integrated ARM9 subsystem provides a high performance processor core for implementing complete MAC functions for access points and mesh network nodes. The ARM9 subsystem includes on-chip memory, cache, and high performance interfaces to the picoArray and external bus interfaces. It also includes a complete DDR-II DRAM controller and a flexible interface for the radio and RF sections.
The value of the array is that it uses a common programming model across all the different devices, even with different accelerators. This has allowed the devices to be used across a wide range of different applications, driving up the volume and driving down the price.
“Ubiquisys has demonstrated a very advanced architecture, looking forward to an all-IP network,” said Doug Pulley, chief technology officer at picoChip. “The software it has developed integrates W-CDMA with broadband and offers a very elegant approach to deploying high volumes of home access points. We designed the PC202 as an upgradeable device and the additional functionality Ubiquisys has added to our modem is very impressive.”
The picoArray technology has been used in WiMax base stations and picocells (picoChip has a deal with Korea Telekom for WiBro picocells) and mainstream 3G basestations, but the low power in particular appealed to the residential femtocell designers. PicoChip also developed reference software that supports the HSDPA high speed data protocols with a software upgrade to the next generation HSUPA protocol.
The PC8208 Node B software reference design provides a modem that is fully compliant to the 3GPP Release 5 standard for four users with a 200m range, and supports 7Mb/s High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). Software upgrade to HSUPA will be available later this year. The reference design includes all baseband processing (sample rate, chip rate and symbol rate operations), as well as scheduler, operations and management (OAM) functionality and protocol termination.
Ubiquisys has also teamed up with consumer giant Sony to manufacture the ZoneGate femtocells, using its buying power to keep the cost of components down.
Manufacture of the mass-market access points will be sited at the Sony UK Technology Centre based at Pencoed in South Wales, a 30000m2 site dedicated to electronic equipment manufacturing, warehousing and distribution. The agreement includes the option to extend production to Sony manufacturing plants worldwide at a later date.
“I’m delighted to announce this collaboration with one of the world’s leading electronic equipment manufacturers,” said Gilbert. “While other companies have focused on the enterprise market, we specifically developed the ZoneGate product from the ground-up to target the residential market. Sony’s experience of leading edge volume production and the purchasing power of Sony Worldwide component sourcing will help us deliver a feature rich product at a mass market price.”
“Sony’s Pencoed Technology Centre will provide Ubiquisys with the complete range of volume production, global logistics and EMC testing facilities required for mass market manufacture,” said Derry Newman, Managing Director at Sony UK.
“Why Sony? Because they are near,” said Gilbert. “Developing a whole range of new products means that the costs we save by being close far outweigh any difference in manufacturing cost between here and the Far East. It’s a pretty strategic relationship.”
With the backing of a major consumer electronic equipment maker and mobile phone makers, Ubiquisys is looking to roll out its ZoneGate femtocells through the rest of this year.
