Ubiquisys Announces Continued Collaboration with Broadcom to Develop a Fully-Integrated Femtocell Home Gateway

Ubiquisys has announced its continued collaboration with long-term partner Broadcom, a global innovation leader in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications, to develop a fully integrated femtocell home gateway.

Multi-function home gateways are demanded by operators to deploy multiple services such as fixed broadband, mobile and entertainment applications from one device in the home. Femtocells transform the indoor mobile experience, but to date have been deployed as standalone devices. Integrated devices offer multi-access service providers lower cost and higher reliability while consumers benefit from multi-mode 3G/Wi-Fi connectivity with smaller form factor and less clutter in the home office. The continued collaboration between Ubiquisys and Broadcom to build an integrated femtocell home gateway breaks new ground by housing all capabilities on a single board, driving considerable cost savings, and enabling operators to offer affordable femto-integrated services.

“There’s no doubt that consumers want fewer – not more – boxes in their home network set-ups,” noted Peter Jarich, Service Director with Current Analysis. “At the same time, operators looking to drive femtocell adoption have a real reason to bundle femtocell functionality with other home gateway features, initially to benefit from the cost efficiencies this creates but also in providing a platform for integrated consumer services.”

The low-cost and highly integrated single-board design is based on Broadcom’s field proven integrated access devices (IAD) with features such as ADSL2+/VDSL2, 802.11n wireless LAN (WLAN), Gigabit Ethernet switching, Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) and voice over IP (VoIP). Integrated with a widely deployed, commercially proven Ubiquisys G3 series femtocell based on Broadcom’s UMTS baseband processor, the design provides 8/16 calls and HSPA (14.4/5.7 Mbps) on UMTS bands I, II, IV and V and runs Ubiquisys intelligent cell software for adaptive performance and interference management.

“Broadcom’s baseband silicon is the mainstay of our residential and SMB femtocells which are deployed globally, providing class-leading performance, energy efficiency and affordability,” said Chris Gilbert, CEO Ubiquisys. “This new development signals a new maturity in the femtocell market, where indoor mobile becomes an affordable, integrated capability in addition to a standalone device.”

“This new development deepens the successful relationship between Broadcom and Ubiquisys, adding Broadcom’s leadership in consumer broadband solutions to the established femtocell business,” said Greg Fischer, Vice President & General Manager, Broadband Carrier Access Business Unit, Broadcom Corporation. “This will lead to a new generation of affordable mobile-integrated home devices that provide new opportunities for operators and their customers.”