Femto Forum and WiMAX Forum to co-operate on specs

While the cellular operators do little more than retest femtocells, the WiMAX Forum has moved to cooperate with the Femto Forum to develop the specifications necessary for a WiMAX femtocell access point.

The announcement, which has coincided with the news that one of Norway's largest utility companies, Hafslund, plans to deploy a commercial WiMAX mobile network, has been promoted by WiMAX operators seeing a potential demand for the technology to improve in-building coverage and data throughput within a given area.

The joint work will involve topics such as end-to-end QoS, provisioning, network entry and authentication, power optimisation and mobility management. The specifications work will also include support for emergency services, lawful intercept and LBS services. Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum, said, "This partnership will not only enable vendor interoperability and increased economies of scale thereby driving competition, it will also help to support far-reaching new femtocell applications."

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