The Femto Forum wrapped up the world’s first femtocell plugfest in March. Extending over many months and culminating in the test event itself, the plugfest process was organized in cooperation with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) with widespread vendor support, including vendors of network equipment and femtocells as well as software and hardware components.

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Participants included Ablaze Wireless, Acme Packet, Airvana, Alcatel-Lucent Telecom, Alpha Networks, Askey Computer Corp., C&S Microwave, Cisco Systems Inc., Contela, Continuous Computing, Genband, Huawei, IntelliNet Technologies, ip.access, Kineto Wireless, NEC, Node-H, Nokia Siemens Networks, picoChip, Technicolor, TRaC Global, and Ubiquisys.

Established as an ETSI Plugtests interoperability testing event, the plugfest’s primary objective was to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 3GPP femtocell standards in supporting interoperability between femtocell access points and network equipment from different vendors. According to the Femto Forum, this will help ensure that there is consistent interpretation of the standard. Standardized femtocells give operators and consumers a richer ecosystem of femtocell products, the Femto Forum says, while facilitating economies of scale.

“The history of cellular is littered with companies that had extremely promising proprietary technologies but failed to achieve widespread adoption. Put simply, the mobile operator community does not embrace non-standardized technologies. The development of the 3GPP femtocell standard was momentous, but verification of the standard is required to enable mass market deployment. Through the plugfest, we are now a vital step closer to that target,” said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum.

“The fact that the plugfest was carried out so quickly after the completion of the 3GPP standard is testament to the industry’s support for standardized femtocell access points and network equipment. This process will ultimately allow operators to multisource the technology as they do with mobile handsets today,” said Natasha Tamaskar, chair of the Femto Forum’s IOT Initiative. “This plugfest represents a crucial step towards the Femto Forum’s vision of a fully open interoperable femtocell ecosystem.”

 “I’m delighted that the Femto Forum partnered with ETSI for this significant event. The availability of the 3GPP Home NodeB (femtocell) specifications has encouraged the development of products that this interoperability event has been able to test,” said Adrian Scrase, head of ETSI’s Mobile Competence Centre. “The results will not only provide confidence to the participating companies, they bring vital feedback to the standardization process. The event is therefore a critical part of the route to mass-market success for standardized femtocell solutions for 3GPP-based mobile networks.”

The organizations conducted interoperability tests between femtocell network gateways, security gateways, femtocell access points, and chipsets to verify 3GPP’s Iuh interface as defined in the Release 8 series of specifications. The plugfest also tested the IPsec/IKEv2 security protocols, which allow femtocells to communicate over the public Internet to operators’ core networks in a highly secure manner. Published in April 2009, 3GPP’s Release 8 femtocell standard defines the secure interface between femtocell access points and femtocell gateways in the core network.

The Femto Forum