Femtocells are all the rage.   These tiny cellular radios promise to improve in-building cellular coverage and are primarily targeted at the home user.  However, some vendors are now building enterprise femtocells.  Should you consider femtocell deployment in order to improve your cellular coverage?  This article identifies the key questions you should ask before you buy a [...]]]> Introduction

Femtocells are all the rage.   These tiny cellular radios promise to improve in-building cellular coverage and are primarily targeted at the home user.  However, some vendors are now building enterprise femtocells.  Should you consider femtocell deployment in order to improve your cellular coverage?  This article identifies the key questions you should ask before you buy a femtocell.

Value proposition

Network operators now offer femtocells such as the AT&T 3G MicroCell, Sprint AIRAVE, and Verizon Wireless Network Extender. The devices provide in-building cellular coverage and look like a Wi-Fi access point (See Figures).

The devices communicate with the cellular phone and convert voice calls into Voice over IP (VoIP) packets.  The packets are then transmitted over your Ethernet network, through your firewall, and over your broadband connection to the network operator’s servers.

At first glance, the femtocell value proposition seems like a win-win for the customer and the network operator.  The customer receives better in-building coverage. The network operator not only avoids the cost and hassle of building a macrocell, they also use the customer’s power, internal network, and broadband connection, further saving themselves money.  What’s not to love?   Well, let me count the ways.

Key questions

Before you add femtocells to your telecommunication strategy, you should consider the following questions.

• Which cellular operator’s signal needs improvement? If you are like most enterprises, your employees probably use cellular service from several network operators.   But a femtocell only supports one operator (e.g., AT&T or Verizon Wireless).  So you may need to install femtocells from many operators throughout your enterprise.

• Where do you need coverage? Oftentimes cellular signals from a macrocell can’t penetrate into the innermost regions of a building (e.g., the basement). Unfortunately, femtocells must be installed near a window so that the attached GPS antenna has a line-of-sight view to orbiting satellites. For instance, AT&T recommends that their microcell be located within three feet of a window and not in the basement or a closet.  So a femtocell might not be able to provide coverage where you need it.

• What type of phone is supported? The AT&T 3G Microcell supports 3G phones ONLY (sorry, no EDGE support).  The Verizon Wireless Network Extender supports 2G phones but no 3G phones (yup, no EV-DO support).  So it is very likely that many employees will not reap the femtocell benefits because their phone is not supported.

• How will a femtocell affect battery life? A femtocell could save battery life because less power is required to transmit a signal over the short distance to the femtocell rather than over the long distance to a macrocell. On the other hand, lots of handoffs from femtocell to femtocell may drain the battery because the phone needs to continually scan for a new femtocell.  So be sure to test phone battery life in your environment.

• How will you identify rogue femtocells? A rogue femtocell is an unauthorized femtocell connected to your network.  In the case of Wi-Fi, vendors provide rogue access point detection software to help detect the rogue AP.  However, what if an intruder configured a rogue femtocell with a valid AT&T account ID (but not the enterprise account ID) and then connected the femtocell to the enterprise network? How would you detect this rogue femtocell?

• How will you isolate femtocell traffic? Femtocell traffic is backhauled across the enterprise network.  Enterprises may want to isolate the femtocell traffic from all other enterprise traffic by using a virtual LAN (VLAN) connection or a separate physical Ethernet connection.

• Is the femtocell solution scalable? Most femtocells limit the number of simultaneous calls to three or four.  Does this provide sufficient capacity for your enterprise?

• How will you block access to non-employees? A femtocell signal may spill into an adjacent building or floor.  Most femtocells provide a “white list” or “black list” mechanism to explicitly include/exclude phone numbers.  This is akin to configuring a Wi-Fi AP with MAC addresses for allowed/disallowed laptop connections.  Is this mechanism a manageable solution?

• How will you manage interference? As with any radio, femtocells are subject to interference.  Unlike Wi-Fi, which uses unlicensed spectrum, femtocells use licensed spectrum that is controlled by the network operator.  So if your femtocell is subjected to interference from another femtocell or macrocell, how will you alleviate the interference?   Note that your ability to move the femtocell may be restricted by the need to maintain the GPS connection.

Conclusion

Femtocells promise to dramatically improve in-building cellular coverage but they raise many questions.  This article identified the key questions you should answer before investing in a femtocell solution.

This blog post was originally written by me and published on www.searchmobilecomputing.com. It is posted here with permission from TechTaget.

I normally focus my blog entries on wireless and mobility issues, but today I must digress and tell you about my wicked bad Verizon adventure. For those of you who are not from the greater Boston area, the word “wicked” is local vernacular for “very”, as in, “The new Star Trek movie was wicked good!”

I normally focus my blog entries on wireless and mobility issues, but today I must digress and tell you about my wicked bad Verizon adventure. For those of you who are not from the greater Boston area, the word “wicked” is local vernacular for “very”, as in, “The new Star Trek movie was wicked good!”

My sad story begins on Wednesday when business associates began asking me, “Hey Paul, did you leave the Burton Group?” Apparently, when they dialed my business number Verizon no longer rang my phone, but instead, rang a phone at Caldwell Banker. Sure enough, when I dialed my number, I was connected to a very nice lady at Caldwell Banker (Roxanne) who had been receiving all of my phone calls. To my great surprise, Roxanne was very sympathetic and offered to refer all incoming callers to my mobile phone number. How many people would take the time to do that?

Naturally, I figured a simple call to Verizon customer support would resolve the problem. Well, I was sadly mistaken. I was informed that my phone number had been transferred to another telecommunications carrier! “But who authorized that action, I asked?” They did not know. All they knew was that someone authorized the transfer and therefore they disconnected my phone service.

I was stunned. How could this happen? Who was responsible? Who was going to take ownership of this problem and resolve it? The response:
“Mr. DeBeasi, it will take us 8 business days to restore your service”. This was totally unacceptable. I receive phone calls on that number throughout the day. I told Verizon that I need my service reactivated within hours, not days or weeks.

During the next 1 ½ hours on the phone, Verizon had me re-apply for phone service (including a new credit check) as if I was a totally new customer. After waiting on hold for what seemed like eternity, they assured me that everything would be copacetic by the following day (Thursday). Ok, I could live with that.

Unfortunately, Thursday came and went and the phone service was still not active! On Friday morning I called Verizon again. Of course, I had to navigate through five minutes of questions from a hyper-friendly automated attendant before I was connected to a living human being. Naturally, there was no record of my previous conversation so I had to explain the entire situation over again. Arrrg! Finally, after a lengthy wait on hold, the customer service representative informed me the repair work could not be completed until June 12.

“What! That is 1 month from now”, I said. The very friendly representative said he would see what he could do and would call me back. At this point I was ready to blow a gasket. This situation was going from bad to worse. I then contemplated a call to the Massachusetts Public Utility Commission, the Better Business Bureau, and the Massachusetts Attorney General.

However, to my surprise, I received a call from Roxanne at Caldwell Banker again. She told me that Verizon had just called her to say that they figured out how to solve the problem with my phone service. I guess that was good news. Shouldn’t Verizon have called me? Whatever! All I really cared about was that they activate my service. Well, to my surprise, Verizon activated my phone service early Friday afternoon and all was happy again in the Beantown suburb of Milford.

As I contemplated the previous three days, I asked myself if I had learned anything from this experience. Well, I learned how dependent I am on my traditional landline phone service. Although I have a mobile phone, many of my incoming calls still go to my landline phone. Secondly, I realized that subconsciously I felt ownership toward “my” phone number. I was appalled that Verizon gave my number to another telecommunications carrier! Lastly, I learned that a simple friendly gesture can mean a lot.

Thank you Roxanne. You made my day!

Clearwire recently announced the completion of the Sprint Nextel transaction and the formation of the new Clearwire Corporation.  In addition, they received $3.2 Billion from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks. As expected, their conference call emphasized all the positive aspects of the deal.  Namely, they own lots of spectrum, they [...]]]>

Clearwire recently announced the completion of the Sprint Nextel transaction and the formation of the new Clearwire Corporation.  In addition, they received $3.2 Billion from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks. As expected, their conference call emphasized all the positive aspects of the deal.  Namely, they own lots of spectrum, they are building an all-IP network that is “open”, and will use fourth generation (4G) mobile WiMAX technology (IEEE 802.16e).  I’d love to see a nationwide 4G mobile network, but let’s be clear about some of the challenges facing Clearwire.

Network buildout will be long and expensive

It will take years and a lot of cash to build out a nationwide mobile WiMAX network.  Remember how long it took for Verizon and Sprint to deploy EV-DO?  (And it is still not available everywhere.) Will Clearwire have enough capital for such a long term investment?  As Clearwire stated on their conference call, “a good portion” of the $3.2 Billion they received will be devoted to network buildout.  But $3.2 billion is not a lot, relatively speaking.  According to the Verizon Q3 2008 Investor Report Verizon spent $4.7 Billion on their wireless network in the first three quarters of 2008.

In addition, both Verizon Wireless and AT&T are generating positive cash flow from wireless operations.  According to the AT&T Q3 2008 Investor Report, AT&T generated $2.3 Billion in wireless income in the quarter ended 9/30/2008.   On the other hand, Clearwire lost $166 million, and Sprint lost $326 Million in the same quarter. When will Clearwire generate positive cash flow?  And how long will Clearwire’s investors continue to pump money into the company?

Device Ecosystem will develop slowly

Clearwire needs to develop a broad ecosystem of affordable “tri-mode” WiMAX devices (I am referring to devices that support 1xRTT, EV-DO Rev A, and 802.16e).  Why?  Well, when subscribers roam out of a WiMAX coverage area, the mobile device must remain connected using EV-DO service.  And when EV-DO service is not available, then the device must be able to use 1xRTT service (primarily to provide voice support).   Therefore, Clearwire 4G devices must also support 2G and 3G technology. 

For the most part, these tri-mode devices are mainly useful on the Clearwire network because most of the world uses GSM.   From a device manufacturer point of view, this is a pretty small market.   In contrast, there are over 200 mobile service providers in over 100 countries that operate third generation GSM networks. That is a huge market.  So a device manufacturer that designs a third generation GSM device can sell that device to network operators around the world.

Device manufacturers follow the money. That is why there is a broad 3G device ecosystem of almost 1000 3G GSM devices from almost 140 different vendors.  And conversely, that is why a WiMAX device ecosystem will emerge only after Clearwire demonstrates that they have broad coverage, a rapidly growing subscriber base, and the profitability for long-term viability.

Competitors will not stand still

When you listen to WiMAX advocates  you’d think that Clearwire has a three-year “head start” on incumbent GSM network operators.  After all, they say, Long Term Evolution (LTE) will not rollout until 2011.   But wait a minute, last time I checked, these GSM operators had over 80% of the worldwide mobile cellular market (more than 2.5 Billion subscribers) and they will continue to evolve their service in order to compete with WiMAX.  Many operators will upgrade to HSPA Evolved.  This enhancement will increase subscriber download speeds into the 1-2 Mbps range. HSPA Evolved will help bridge the gap between the HSPA and LTE.

In addition, high-speed service doesn’t simply rely upon a fast radio access network (RAN).  It also requires a fast core network.  Operators like Verizon Wireless and AT&T will leverage their profitable operations to build out their core network in anticipation of LTE.

Conclusion

Clearwire has completed an important first step and has partnered with blue chip investors. But they are embarking on a long journey with very significant challenges. It is going to be fun to see what happens.