The business of Internet, wireless, and telecom law.
On September 17, 2007, only 10 days after the Pulvermedia’s FMC conference in Chicago where Sprint discussed its future femtocell plans, Sprint formerly announced that it would immediately start offering its AIRAVE femtocell solution in Denver and Indianapolis. Sprint included a cool marketing video about AIRAVE and femtocells on the Sprint web site. While two trials [...]
Femtocells were all the rage at PulverMedia’s FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) Conference in Chicago last week. One carrier in the U.S., Sprint, is leading the pack. As of today, there are no femtocell rollouts in any geography. There are a few trials, some announced and others not. Telefonica, as reported in WSJ last week (9/6/2007), is [...]
Femtocells are going to move fast in the coming 12 months. Wireless carriers will push the residential gateway from zero units to millions. On August 13, 2007, Xchange Magazine reported that In-Stat is projecting that by 2011 there will be 40 million femtocells in use and 101 million users of femtocells. Femtocells are micro cell phone [...]
Femtocells could revolutionize cellular service in terms of diverting cell traffic off the network, providing great service in buildings and homes, increasing bandwidth speed, and, most significantly, increasing the service providers’ footprints outside their licensed areas. Cell phone service providers, like Sprint or T-Mobile, would be able use femtocells to off-load traffic to their customer’s provided [...]
Femtocells could have a dramatic change on the cell phone service environment. ABI research predicts there will be 150 million femtocell users by 2012. That is from zero users today, as reported by GigaOm. On the other side of the race, In-Sat, as quoted in PDAStreet, projects there will be 200 million dual mode WiFi [...]
TMC announced today that WiFiMobile is selling unlocked smartphones in the US market with VoIP software clients included: “WiFiMobile addresses the Wi-Fi starved US smartphone market.” WiFiMobile has been competing in Europe by providing a VoIP client for the Nokia N95 and Nokia S60. The VoIP-mobile company competes with Truphone in the UK. Truphone, a [...]
UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) is driving FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence). UMA is really WiFi and cell phones combined. ABI Research, as reported by InformationWeek, currently projects that there will be 65 million UMA users by 2012. The growth in UMA is happening without strategic thinking by the wireless providers. Almost like a small sound that will [...]
More significant than the iPhone (nothing could be that important…) this week there were several events that announced to the general public that fixed mobile convergence is hitting the mainstream. The interesting point is that is not exactly as FMC was anticipated back in 1990. In 1990, PCS “Personal Communication System” was touted as the [...]
It is important for Americans and for the U.S. regulatory policy that spectrum be purchased and used, not purchased and under used. Under utilization prevents competition and growth of broadband penetration. The problem with the FCC spectrum auctions, reflected in the highly politicized upcoming 700 MHz auction, is that many of the more recent auctions have been [...]
Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt’s company, Frontline Wireless, is proposing that one of the requirements of the 700 Mhz auction is to require that certain spectrum be built out by the winner for public safety. GigaOM had a great blog on Frontline last month. I heard Chairman Hundt speak at the Boston TIECON 2007 conference [...]
