A recent ABI Research study posited that although femtocells hold tremendous promise for carriers, 2008 would pass as a fairly low-key year for femtocell vendors, with only "about 100,000 units" expected to ship in this year. 2009 will bear more fruit and 2010 will be the year when the market moves to double-digit millions in volume.

 

Well Alcatel-Lucent is doing their part to move the deployment numbers in the right direction, announcing a femtocell contract from Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's largest telecommunications provider, to deploy the first femtocell network in Taiwan, which is designed to enhance the coverage of Chunghwa Telecom's mobile network inside homes and offices.

 

Alcatel-Lucent will supply the operator with a comprehensive end-to-end solution including its Base Station Router (BSR) Femto -- which incorporates 3G W-CDMA radio access and core network elements into a single unit. The deployment will also include service routers and Home Device Manager from Motive, now part of Alcatel-Lucent's portfolio.