2008 will see a fall out in the femto cell equipment vendor market, as operators begin to hone their strategies, make purchasing decisions, and consign some femto cell hopefuls to the loser pen, according to Paul Callahan, vp business development of one of those hopefuls, Airvana.
Callahan said that with operators beginning to ramp up lab and initial network trials of femto cells, two or three names are beginning to come to the fore, with many of the current 16 hopefuls destined for disappointment.
Callahan rates Huawei as serious contenders, as well as not discounting Alcatel-Lucent "just yet". Then there are the 'start ups', among which he tipped market maker ip.access as a possible candidate for sale, implicitly querying their ability to meet the scale and demands of what will be (it is hoped) a mass consumer market.
Airvana, which has an interoperability and partnership deal with Nokia (which is targeting this market with its network access gateways), is well-placed to compete on the twin virtues of reliability and price, Callahan said. "The first point operators need to know is, 'Will it work?'" Callahan said. "And that's really work. Not work for an hour and then overheat and drop out, not be flaky. The second is price, and because we use mass market FPGAs rather than someone else's chipsets, we are already winning that battle. Last April [2007] when we acquired 3Way Networks FPGAs were shipping at $9 each, now that¹s already $5-6 for the same parts. That's a big price drop." Callahan said that he didn't see any more than 150,00 units shipped in all markets throughout 2008, although he thinks that in 2009 the market will be ten times that size.
Callahan's view is that management of the CPE will be key for operators, especially as they will most likely integrate the femto cell with a home access WiFi point, to ensure they have QoS across the DSL line.
"We've bet the company on this, in CDMA [where Airvana has a significant macro EV-DO business and will compete in the CPE and network gateway market] and in UMTS [where the company will only enter the CPE market]. We're totally committed to this market, and to getting it right," Callahan said.