Femtocell services are currently available in 23 countries around the world, 43% of which have multiple operators offering the technology. This growth in markets with multiple femtocell offerings was also found to be driving free femtocell offers from operators. The majority of countries with competitive consumer femtocell offerings include at least one operator who offers the devices free of charge. Currently, subscribers in France, Japan, Russia and the United States have access to free femtocells.
The growth in free femtocell offers is being driven by the falling costs of femtocell technology as economies of scale and competition increase. Over the past quarter, important progress has been made in the evolution of femtocell chipsets with new launches from Cavium, Freescale, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. These join existing chipset vendors - Broadcom, DesignArt, Picochip and Mindspeed.
"We are seeing evidence that once one operator deploys femtocells in a market there is strong pressure on its competitors to offer a rival service. This competition is in turn starting to drive free femtocell offers as operators look to differentiate their services. These free offers have become commercially viable as the costs associated with femtocells start to fall due to vendor competition and economies of scale," said Dimitris Mavrakis, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.
New femtocell deployments in the past quarter include Vodafone Netherlands, Vodafone Czech Republic, Vimpelcom in Russia and Cosmote in Greece. There are currently 36 femtocell deployments globally, 14 further commitments, and, as of June 2011, in excess of 2.3 million femtocells active both privately in homes and offices, as well as publicly in metropolitan and rural environments.
There are more 3G femtocells than conventional 3G base stations globally and Informa forecasts growth to continue with 48 million access points in use globally by 2014. Eight of the top 10 mobile operator groups (by revenue) offer femtocell services - this includes AT&T Group, France Telecom Group, NTT DOCOMO Group, Sprint, Telefonica Group, Deutsche Telecom Group, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone Group.
The expansion of the femtocell industry is also reflected in the growing membership of the Femto Forum, the femtocell industry association. Its newest members include Asahikasei Microdevices Eircom, Femtocell Communications Zimbabwe, Free Mobile, Idirect, Nomor, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa S.A. and TOT PCL. Its membership includes 70 vendors and 66 mobile operators representing over 1.94 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, across multiple wireless technologies (WiMAX, UMTS and CDMA) and accounts for 34% of total mobile subscribers worldwide.
Informa Telecoms & Media independently researched and produced this report for the Femto Forum. The report is updated on a quarterly basis and is published free of charge on the Femto Forum's website here - http://bit.ly/femto_update.
*A femtocell is a small mobile phone base station, looking rather like a wireless router, that is connected to the phone network via the Internet. The device is designed for use in areas where the mobile signal is weak; it uses radio to enhance the quality of the call. (Source: Oxford Dictionaries)
Informa Telecoms & Media aims to deliver strategic insight founded on global market data and primary research. The company works in partnership with its clients, informing their decision-making with practical services supported by analysts.
The company conducts primary and secondary research on the latest trends impacting the mobile communications, fixed communications and TV sectors, on a global basis. ITM's market intelligence services - World Cellular Information Service (WCIS), World Broadband Information Service (WBIS) and the Intelligence Centre - to give clients access to market forecasts and key performance indicators (KPIs), as well as detailed analysis and exploration of trends.
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