Thomson, Nokia Siemens to work on 3G Femto home access solution

Thomson, a leader in DSL Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), and Nokia Siemens Networks, a leading global enabler of communications services, have announced their collaboration in developing a pioneering 3G femto cell home access solution.

Femto cells are small cellular access points which provide enhanced coverage specifically in residential environments and enable operators to provide fixed-mobile convergence services and others such as IPTV.

Thus, Thomson’s femto cell-enabled residential gateway coupled with the 3G Femto Home Access network solution from Nokia Siemens Networks will allow operators to seamlessly deliver compelling 3G multimedia services such as music downloads and video available in the home on any WCDMA 3G handset, with unrivalled quality of service, network security and manageability.

Trials of the 3G Femto Home Access solution including Thomson’s residential gateway will start at the beginning of 2008, and commercial deployment is planned for the third quarter of 2008. While the femto market is still in its early stages of development and consequently difficult to forecast, market research firms ABI Research and Ovum respectively estimate this market could reach 10-12 mln units by 2010.