The Future of Femtocell

Femtocell is not a technology many of us talk about neither do we hear about it often; however, the solution is slowly gaining popularity among the masses as an alternative to other in-home wireless technologies.  In 2013 the global femtocell market was worth approximately US $304.8 Million; by 2020, this amount is expected to reach US $ 3.7 Billion, according to Allied Market Research.

Currently femtocells are mainly use in homes to enhance the mobile network. Allied pointed out that over the next 5-6 years, the adoption of femtocell is expected to accelerate, driven by its affordability and technological advancement.  Increased adoption of broadband services and mobile phone usage for video conferencing, online game and software/music downloading are driving the growth in femtocell market.

Enterprise femtocell use is also expected to rise outpacing residential use and capturing 97% of the market by 2019, said ABI Research.  The cost of business femtocell deployment is seen as a barrier for many business especially small and medium enterprises; however, acceptance is being driven by its services, such as voice.

Currently the femtocell market has three types of devices 2G, 3G and 4G; in the short-term ABI see 3G femtocell having the biggest share of the market for North America and Asia-Pacific but also noted that 3G/4G multimode femtocells are taking off. They see North America as the biggest market for multimode femtocell where the growing LTE and small cells markets will benefit form the dual access capabilities.

SIP/IMS and IU-H femtocell technologies divide the market. SIP/IMS technology is mainly used in the residential, small and medium enterprise markets; the use of SIP/IMS in residential products has seen a growth in femtocell devices.  IU-H has a major market share compared to SIP due to its multiple applications in networking services.

This article is based on recent femtocell market research by ABI Research and Allied Market Research.