Top 10 Infrastructure Challenges Ahead

The deployment of femtocells will be challenging and will require some innovative solutions. According to Manish Singh, vice president of product line management at Continuous Computing, the top 10 challenges include low-cost implantation, network architecture harmonization, remote device management and software upgrades, RF interference, potential consumer concerns, QoS and traffic prioritization, timing and network synchronization, provisioning, regulatory hurdles, and marketing.1

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He believes the $200 price per femtocell many vendors plan to charge is too high for mass-market adoption and that a key driver for cost reduction is integration of silicon with software. Another helpful approach is scalability, where operators need to be confident they can source devices in the right volumes at the right price.

As for the need for network architecture harmonization, there are too many different and sometimes proprietary integration methods, which translates into market fragmentation. Singh sees hope in the Femto Forum’s initiative (www.femtoforum.org) to harmonize network architectures and set the development for future standards.

Once femtocells are deployed in mass volumes, operators must find a way to manage femtocells remotely, for software and firmware updates, performance monitoring, and diagnostic testing of customer-premise equipment. RF interference is another key challenge. Singh sees hope in work on developing sophisticated algorithms to mitigate this problem and adjust signals based on their environments.

As for potential consumer concerns about health and safety as well as access control, Singh is confident that the wireless industry must educate the public about the safety of femtocells that comply with the same safety limits applied to other wireless devices. He sees a need for vendors to establish an encrypted IPSec tunnel that identifies and authenticates itself to the operator’s network as valid.

In an environment where femtocells will enable greater use of data services and video streaming in the home, high QoS levels will be critical. Traffic prioritization becomes essential to ensure the consumer experience does not deteriorate with events like virtual private network (VPN) connections, like those for PCs, which do not break when making a mobile voice call.

To meet stringent femtocell network synchronization requirements, several methods must be investigated. These include the use of an accurate protocol like IEEE 1588, a GPS timing reference, receiving signals from an overlaying macro network and making adjustments to timing accordingly, and using advanced low-cost, high-stability crystal-controlled oscillators.

Seamless integration of femtocell technology is a must. This means easy user operation and minimal need for onsite support. Mobile operators must also come up with ways to reduce current billing, authentication, authorization, and accounting activities by reusing existing procedures to keep costs down and stay competitive. A number of regulatory hurdles must be overcome, such as the need to meet E911 requirements. Finally, mobile operators must begin to successfully market the idea of femtocells through robust usage cases and plans to drive femtocell adoption.

Reference

1. For more in-depth analysis of these top 10 challenges, go to Manish Singh’s two-part article at www.mobilehandsetdesignline.com/howto/206905349 and www.embedded.com/design/207401118.