NETGEAR and Ubiquisys team to develop femtocell home gateway
NETGEAR, a worldwide provider of branded networking products, and Ubiquisys, a developer of intelligent 3G femtocell access points for the residential market, have announced a collaboration to deliver a comprehensive residential gateway with integrated DSL modem, Wi-Fi, VoIP and 3G femtocell technology.
This gateway device will offer mobile operators worldwide a single-box, converged solution at a competitive price. It is anticipated that the NETGEAR gateway integrating Ubiquisys' femtocell technology will be available for operator testing by Q4 2007, with commercial availability slated for early 2008. Representatives from the two companies will be featured speakers at the International Conference on Home Access Points and Femtocells, taking place in London from July 3-5.
The Ubiquisys ZoneGate femtocell is a plug-and-play 3G access point that uses a mobile subscriber's DSL connection to transport voice and data calls to the core network using a range of standards-based interfaces. NETGEAR and Ubiquisys are working to build this functionality into NETGEAR's wireless gateways in order to provide mobile operators with the means to interact with home networks via 3G broadband networks.
"Consumer demand is rising for high-quality, seamless and easy-to-use solutions that enable new applications such as fixed mobile convergence. Integrating Ubiquisys' femtocell technology into NETGEAR products represents a natural progression in home networking," said David James, director of service provider products at NETGEAR. "Not only will this solution enable mobile operators to provide enhanced cellular coverage in the home, but it will also make it possible for consumers to access and control a range of home networking services via standard 3G phone handsets."
"Our collaboration with NETGEAR brings together two of the strongest players from their respective sectors to turn the FMC vision into a reality," said Will Franks, co-founder and CTO of Ubiquisys. "This teaming is about enabling forward-thinking mobile operators to seize market share and generate new revenue streams through new and innovative residential service models."
A recent study from ABI Research forecasts that by 2012 there will be 152 million users of femtocell products on 36 million access points worldwide. Stuart Carlaw, ABI Research principal analyst, states, "Femtocells offer mobile service providers the opportunity to address fixed mobile convergence markets with a highly attractive and efficient solution. The alliance between NETGEAR and Ubiquisys offers both companies the opportunity to combine their core competencies in order to meet challenging operator requirements for Quad and Triple play services. In fact, in our June 2007 survey, we rated Ubiquisys number one femtocell vendor of the top ten players in the sector, based on product innovation and implementation."
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