China push femtocell technology

Source: http://www.cn-c114.net/583/a453690.html

Not wanting to be left out of an emerging market, the Chinese hosted what they tout as the first femtocell event in China. The China Femtocell Symposium took place on October 15th, 2009 in Beijing. Sponsors and speakers came from well-known names in the industry to drum up excitement for this segment of the mobile industry.

Currently, three national service providers for fixed line and mobile networks exist in China: China Mobile with GSM and TD-SCDMA, the Chinese version of 3G; China Telecom, a fixed line provider with CDMA, and China Unicom with both UMTS and GSM which began offering Apple’s iPhone this month.

A stated purpose of the event was to bring the latest news about worldwide femtocell technology to Chinese industry, their government and carriers within China. One intent was to provide a demonstration venue, with strong emphasis on Femto Forum members. There is not much available about the, apparently local, proceedings, but it is said that products demonstrated at the symposium included 3G UMTS and 3G TDD-SCDMA.

Sponsors included industry influencers, IEEE, CCSA, and ITU, a United Nations agency which coordinates the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promotes international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, and works to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world. We can thank the agency for establishing worldwide standards that foster seamless interconnection of a wide range of communications systems, and attempts at strengthening cyber security.

Industry sponsors included Huawei, a provider of global telecom solutions, and Airvana, which has been involved in mobile broadband concepts for nine-years. Their products revolve around high-performance technology, specifically femtocell and convergence solutions. They provide macro radio access infrastructure, which will be important across China’s diverse geography. Rakon, based in New Zealand, and rumored to be expanding into China, threw their sponsorship into the Symposium. They develop frequency control solutions, involving crystal and oscillator technology for GPS, and telecommunications network timing/synchronization. The first to develop the 0.5pmm TCXO, Rakon claims to provide ultra-stable TCXOs and low-cost SMD OCXOs guaranteeing holdover from 24 hours to 12 days.

Sponsors also sent speakers to hawk their wares to the Chinese. Todd Mersch from Trillium Protocol Software at Continuous Computing, oversees products ranging from LTE, femtocell, IMS, to 3G/4G wireless. George Huang, currently Airvana Managing Director, Greater China, draws on a broad background which gives him insight into doing business across the world. He has been with McCaw cellular, and in Engineering/Operations in Israel, as well as directing marketing and sales for Nortel Networks in Brazil, Taiwan and China.