Femtocells: Opportunities and Challenges for Business and Technology

12

Summary: The Status and Future of Femtocells

Simon Saunders

12.1 Summary

The femtocell industry is young, but has already taken significant steps towards maturity. In this book we have attempted to highlight the status of femtocell development and the directions being taken for the future. Here we summarise the key findings of each of the chapters.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Femtocells showed that the continued growth of mobile services, especially for mobile broadband data, creates greater expectation for services, volume, quality and coverage for users and new challenges for operators. Femtocells represent a distinctive new class of device which can deliver economic and service benefits for operators and users alike. They are easy to install and use for the end-customer, while being fully managed by the operator and make full use of the operator's existing spectrum and network assets.

Chapter 2: Small Cell Background and Success Factors explained that small cells are nothing new and indeed have been by far the biggest contributor to the increase in spectrum efficiency of wireless systems over at least the last several decades. For the future, smaller cells are an essential component of wireless networks, delivering solutions to the demand for coverage and capacity at levels which would be uneconomic using macrocells alone. Other small cell types, such as microcells, picocells and distributed antennas, are already in widespread use, but femtocells fill a gap in the options ...