Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) has won its first contract for 3G CDMA femtocell. The company recently entered into a development agreement with Chinese network infrastructure solutions provider ZTE Corp. ZTE plans to target the Chinese as well as North American markets with its 3G CDMA femtocell products.
A femtocell is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in a residential or small business environment. This access point communicates to the wireless service providers’ network through a broadband connection.
The major innovation of Qualcomm’s 3G femtocell is that it will support both CDMA and GSM standards and the chipset will integrate femtocell base station with the baseband architecture. The product will be smaller and cheaper than the existing 3G femtocells.
This chipset will have a combined radio chip and 3G baseband controllers, supports all latest high-speed technologies like HSPA+, and contain a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and a GPS receiver. Management described that this chipset may be used as a platform for multimedia gateway. Qualcomm will deliver samples in the second half of 2010.
Femtocell is quickly emerging as a fundamental technology enabler in the deployment of next-generation (3G/4G) wireless network infrastructure. Using femtocell, a wireless network operator can improve both coverage and capacity especially in an indoor area where access would otherwise be
limited or unavailable, in a highly cost effective way. This will reduce the carriers operating costs as well as capital expenditures.
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