Femtocell Demo Points Toward StandardizationFemtocell Demo Points Toward Standardization

In a move to help in the standardization of femtocells, a group of femtocell providers announced Monday that they have demonstrated a handset working with the technology.

The four companies involved in the demo are Airvana Inc., Intrinsyc Software International, ip.access, and Ubiquisys. Intrinsyc's UX-Zone application was used because it triggers the user interface on smartphones to automatically receive femtocell signals when the device comes within range.

"The demonstration is part of the wider initiative to ensure femtocell-aware applications will work with any vendor's femtocell," said Andrew Hurdle, Intrinsyc's vice president of business development, in a statement. "UX-Zone is more than just a single application; it's an extension to our RapidRil product set that provides a standardized way for third-party applications on the phone to become femtocell-aware."

Intrinsyc has developed software for Android and Windows Mobile handsets, in the process creating an interoperability path between the two platforms.

Keeping their pledge to work together to support the Femto Forum's Services Special Interest Group, Airvana, ip.access, and Ubiquisys teamed up to make it simpler for developers to build new femtocell apps using standardized Application Programming Interfaces.

"With standard femtocell APIs, developers will be able to write mobile applications that run on any femtocell on any network," said Andrew Germano, vice chairman of the Femto Forum and chairman of the services SIG.

Femtocells have been touted as a solution to the expected spectrum crunch in the future. However, development of femtocells has been slow to date. In June another group of vendors including Starent and Continuous Computing demonstrated their work on the 3GPP luh standard, also an important move toward developing standards for femtocells.

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