Qualcomm announces industry's highest capacity femtocell solution for enterprise and metro markets

SAN DIEGO, USA: Qualcomm Inc. announced expanded availability of its Femtocell Station Modem (FSM) FSM9216, FSM9816 and FSM9832 enterprise chipsets, Qualcomm's fully integrated system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for femtocell development with an extended user capacity of up to 32 active users.

These chipsets complement the currently available FSM 3G femtocell chipsets that feature eight user versions targeting the residential market with hardware and software compatibility. The company also announced a Femto-Wi-Fi hardware reference design that integrates these FSM enterprise solutions with Qualcomm Atheros 802.11n Wi-Fi AR9350 and AR9344 access point solutions.

The 16-user enterprise FSM chipsets for UMTS and CDMA are now available. Both the Femto-Wi-Fi integration hardware platform and the CDMA version of the FSM chipset with the expanded 32-user support are scheduled for availability in the second half of 2011. These higher capacity femtocell products for enterprise and metro applications take advantage of the same industry leading UltraSON interference and mobility management software and algorithms that are available from Qualcomm on the existing residential FSM products.

UltraSON creates robust wireless coverage while ensuring that the femtocells do not interfere with macrocells while providing hand-off capabilities between macrocells and other femtocells.

By providing increased support for up to 32 active users, Qualcomm's FSM chipset will provide the capability to address larger cell sites, such as metro-femtocells and picocells, allowing more simultaneous users to connect to the femtocell and access cellular networks in challenging environments where reception is poor. The integrated Femto-Wi-Fi reference designs allow operators to create access points that let their enterprise customers connect to both Wi-Fi and cellular networks through a single gateway and coordinate the services delivery via either access technology.

The reference designs will initially be targeted at the enterprise but they can be scaled down for residential applications and scaled up for outdoor metro-femtocell-Wi-Fi combinations.

"Our higher capacity femtocell solutions and new integrated Femto-Wi-Fi reference design will enable operators to deploy a single high-capacity access point to provide both Wi-Fi and cellular connections, leveraging common backhaul and site locations, with our FSM chipsets enabling more users to take advantage of these access points simultaneously," said Steven Brightfield, director of product management at Qualcomm. "The Femto-Wi-Fi integration platform features a small design footprint and support for power-over-Ethernet, making the addition of these access points to an existing enterprise network simple and economical."

"The addition of femtocell chipsets into Qualcomm Atheros' Wi-Fi and Ethernet integration strategy enables wide area cellular wireless network integration, allowing enterprises to deploy scalable and reliable network solutions," stated Irvind Ghai, director of enterprise marketing, Qualcomm Atheros. "It also enables existing enterprise customers to expand their portfolio offerings by utilizing one supplier for the complete solution."

Qualcomm's FSM chipsets support both CDMA2000 and UMTS/HSPA+ network technologies and include a baseband modem, RF, network listen, GPS and an application processor, making them ideal for residential and commercial femtocell development. The Qualcomm Atheros AR9350 and AR9344 Wi-Fi SoCs support all modes of 802.11n in both bands and include Ethernet, routing and management functions.