Qualcomm invests in femtocell firm

Femtocell and picocell maker ip.access received a financial boost from Qualcomm today. The company joined existing investors Cisco, Intel Capital, ADC, Motorola Ventures, Scottish Equity Partners, Rothschild Gestion and Amadeus Capital Partners to fund ip.access' Oyster 3G femtocell system, which uses the residential broadband connection to deliver a 3G signal in the home. ip.access is rumored to have inked a femtocell deal with AT&T.

Ovum analyst Jeremy Green says that the money Qualcomm is investing in ip.access is not as important as the relationships and influence it yields for the firm. Green adds that while Ovum is still somewhat skeptical about the femtocell business case, Qualcomm's decision to invest in ip.access gives the femtocell proposition more credibility.  

This is the second big European announcement from Qualcomm this week. On Monday, the firm announced that it was purchasing a 40 MHz chunk of L-band spectrum, prompting speculation that it was planning to use it to deliver mobile TV service.

For more:
- see this press release [1]

Related stories:
Qualcomm wins U.K. spectrum but coy about plans. See this story about Qualcomm's spectrum win [2].
T-Mobile invests in femtocell maker. Read this T-Mobile femtocell article [3].
Rumor: ip.access wins femtocell deal with AT&T. See this article on ip.access and AT&T [4].