Femtocell Technology Put Through its Paces at Plugfest
Vendor community comes together at ETSI to verify the latest 3GPP femtocell
standard and facilitate further deployments
London, UK – 29th June 2011 – The Femto Forum, the independent industry and
operator association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide, today
announced it has successfully completed its third plugfest which this time
focused on the 3GPP release 9 femtocell standard. It surpassed previous
plugfests by undertaking true end-to-end testing using a real macro network
to test hand-over between femtocells and surrounding base stations, as well
as using France Telecom’s core network to test femtocell integration. The
series of plugfests aim to cultivate an effective ecosystem of standardised
femtocells. This helps provide operators and consumers with a wider choice
of femtocell products, while also facilitating economies of scale which help
bring down the cost of equipment.
The plugfest had widespread vendor support with 13 companies participating,
including vendors of network equipment and femtocell access points as well
as component providers.
It was organized in cooperation with ETSI (the European Telecommunications
Standards Institute), the technical support of France Telecom and overseen
by testing and compliance consultancy TRaC Global. The primary objective of
the plugfest, organized as an ETSI Plugtests™ interoperability testing
event, was to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 3GPP femtocell standard
in supporting interoperability between femtocell access points and network
equipment from different vendors.
“The plugfest series has been crucial in helping create the current
environment in which femtocell deployments are growing remarkably. They
provide operators and end-users with the widest possible technology options
while also driving economies of scale, thereby helping to reduce equipment
costs and increase deployments,” said Karim Sharf, Chair of the Femto
Forum’s IOT SIG and CTO – Telecoms at TRaC Global. “This plugfest has
featured the most rigorous testing so far by replicating real network
scenarios”.
Interoperability tests were conducted between femtocell network gateways,
security gateways, management systems femtocell access points and chipsets
to verify 3GPP’s Iuh interface, as defined in the Release 9 series of
specifications. 3GPP’s Release 9 femtocell standard was published in April
2010, and defines the secure interface between femtocell access points and
femtocell gateways in the core network.
The companies involved were Ablaze Wireless, Alcatel-Lucent, Alpha Networks
Inc., Askey Computer Corporation, Cisco, Continuous Computing, France
Telecom, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., ip.access Ltd., NEC Europe Ltd.,
Node-H GmbH, Nokia Siemens Networks Oy and Picochip.
About The Femto Forum
Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed
spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operator’s network
using residential DSL or cable broadband connections. The Femto Forum
(www.femtoforum.org) has been set up to promote the wide-scale adoption of
femtocells. It has 137 members including 63 operators representing more than
1.71 billion mobile subscribers – 33% of the global total. Comprised of
mobile operators, telecoms hardware and software vendors, content providers
and innovative start-ups, its mission is to advance the development and
adoption of small cells via femtocells and broader applications of femto
technology for the provision of high-quality 2G/3G/4G coverage and services
within the residential, enterprise and public access markets.
