Femtocells to Dominate Market for Indoor Cell Coverage

While femtocells were virtually nonexistent in 2006, and deployed by one operator in 2007, they will make up 61% of small cellular base station revenue by 2013, reports In-Stat.

As mobile operators migrate from larger base stations to smaller access points, the number of units deployed will explode dramatically, says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. In-Stat expects the smaller and cheaper cells to be more immune to the recession, compared with more expensive macro and micro base station shipments.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Femtocells, picocells, and microcells are expected to surpass 15 million units by 2013.
• Worldwide annual femtocell semiconductor revenue will approach $400 million by 2013.
• Sprint was the first to market with a femtocell-based service in 2007, while others entered the market in 2008.
• In mid-2009, Airwalk introduced a new enterprise femtocell. These products have the capacity of a traditional picocell and the ease-of-use of a femtocell.

Source: cellular-news