Femtocells to Dominate Market for Indoor Cell Coverage

While femtocells were virtually non-existent in 2006, and deployed by one operator in 2007, they will make up 61 percent of small cellular base station revenue by 2013, reports In-Stat. Microcells, picocells and femtocells provide indoor cell phone coverage in a cost-effective manner.

“As mobile operators migrate from larger base stations to smaller access points, the number of units deployed will explode dramatically,” says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. “In-Stat expects the smaller and cheaper cells to be more immune to the recession, compared with more expensive macro and micro base station shipments.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Femtocells, picocells and microcells are expected to surpass 15 million units by 2013.
• Worldwide annual femtocell semiconductor revenue will approach $400 M by 2013.
• Sprint was the first to market with a femtocell-based service in 2007, while others entered the market in 2008.
• In mid-2009, Airwalk introduced a new enterprise femtocell. These products have the capacity of a traditional picocell and the ease-of-use of a femtocell.