picoChip and Kineto team in UMA-enabled femtocell market

Femtocells are low-cost cellular access points for mobile operators looking to provide enhanced, in-building 3G coverage within homes and small businesses. Recent analysis from ABI Research estimates that by 2011 there will be 102 million users of Femtocell products on 32 million access points worldwide.

Made possible through recent advances in low-cost 3G silicon, as well as advanced radio frequency planning techniques, femtocells are receiving interest from operators globally. However, the key to sustainable, mass-market femtocell adoption is a standards-based core-network connectivity solution that supports cost-effective large-scale deployments.

“UMA technology overcomes the technical challenges for network operators trying to deploy and manage millions of femtocells in the network,” said Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing for picoChip. “By collaborating with Kineto Wireless, the leader in UMA technology, the companies are able to develop an advanced reference design for femtocells to enable mass-market adoption.”

The 3GPP UMA standard is uniquely suited to address the access network challenges of femtocells. UMA was developed to enable millions of dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi handsets to integrate seamlessly and with minimal impact with the mobile operator’s existing core network infrastructure. With UMA-enabled femtocells, operators will have a standardized, cost effective and scalable core network interface to fully realize the coverage, capacity and cost benefits of 2G and 3G in-building cellular access points.

“We are pleased to be collaborating with picoChip, a leader in the Femtocell market,” said Gary Sarson, vice president of business development for Kineto Wireless. “Combining UMA with picoChip’s low cost silicon and HSDPA software sets the stage for a robust Femtocell market.”