On the same day the newly formed Femto Forum was commencing its conference in the U.K., Nokia Siemens launched a 3G femtocell and a network gateway to allow operators to manage multiple femtocells in subscribers' homes. But it made no mention of the Femto Forum.
Femtocells are being billed as the next big thing in fixed-mobile convergence, promising to solve many of the shortcomings faced so far by several existing WiFi/cellular FMC services, namely a lack of compelling handsets and perceived complexity of the solution. The Femto Forum aims to create a standard for femtocells, designed to drive down the cost and encourage mobile operators to jump in.
Nokia Siemens' gateway plugs into an operator's core network and is designed to manage femtocells from multiple vendors, but Nokia Siemens has announced that other vendors will have to make sure their femtocells conform to a proprietary interface.
The Femto Forum hopes to get Nokia Siemens on board, but at present, any other vendors will have to rely on Nokia Siemens, which promises to "co-operate with femto vendors to ensure interoperability of their equipment to the Nokia Siemens Networks interface."
For more about Nokia Siemens' 3G femtocell:
- read this report from Techworld