Femto Cell is a concept to provide 2G/3G mobile services with limited range primarily individual homes or offices. Generally a femto cell is served by small box placed at user’s location and acts like a small BTS and mobiles in its range can connect to it. For handsets it’s another cell in the operator's network. Femto cells connect locally to mobile phones and similar devices through their normal GSM, GPRS, or UMTS connections and route the connections over a broadband internet connection back to the mobile network.
The primary reasons to drive this technology are
- To improve mobile network coverage in small areas
- To reduce the cost of radio access networks
Allot of new implementations are needed to make this reality so that none of the existing network elements has any impact due to its introduction. A standardized femto solution for UMTS seems a reality thanks to 3GPP few months back, most of the stakeholders agreed to a framework. Detailed specification standardization is still far from complete.
A generic Femto architecture can be divided in following domains
- A local Home network including femto box and any other access equipment deployed in users’ location
- IP Network Domain a public IP network to connect Home network to operators security gateway
- Operator femto access domain comprises several new nodes including security gateway, an authentication server, a femto gateway connecting to operators core network to avoid any impact on current core network.
Depending on wireless technology ie. GSM/GPRS or UMTS Femto elements may have different protocols and signaling procedures. For femto network entry point in the operators existing core network is MSC, so for core network Femto access network will appear as GSM BSS or UMTS radio access network.
The primary reasons to drive this technology are
- To improve mobile network coverage in small areas
- To reduce the cost of radio access networks
Allot of new implementations are needed to make this reality so that none of the existing network elements has any impact due to its introduction. A standardized femto solution for UMTS seems a reality thanks to 3GPP few months back, most of the stakeholders agreed to a framework. Detailed specification standardization is still far from complete.
A generic Femto architecture can be divided in following domains
- A local Home network including femto box and any other access equipment deployed in users’ location
- IP Network Domain a public IP network to connect Home network to operators security gateway
- Operator femto access domain comprises several new nodes including security gateway, an authentication server, a femto gateway connecting to operators core network to avoid any impact on current core network.
Depending on wireless technology ie. GSM/GPRS or UMTS Femto elements may have different protocols and signaling procedures. For femto network entry point in the operators existing core network is MSC, so for core network Femto access network will appear as GSM BSS or UMTS radio access network.
