Airvana announces HubBub UMTS High-Capacity Femtocell

Airvana, Inc. has announced a new Femtocell which will allow mobile operators to provide improved 3G connectivity and excellent call quality in public areas such as offices.

The HubBub UMTS High-Capacity Femtocell, which is fully standards-compliant and uses a standard internet connection for backhaul, offers 21.6 Mbps download speeds and 5.7 Mbps upload speed.

Each Femtocell supports 16 simultaneous users and delivers a concentrated 3G network over a 600m radius, compared with a range of around 200m offered by residential femtocell technologies.

The HubBub UMTS High-Capacity Femtocell will also support 40 users of low-bandwith applications, such as push e-mail.

Peter Jarich, research director, Wireless Infrastructure and Converged Core, Current Analysis, said:

“The major drawback to femtocells in commercial or enterprise environments has always been low concurrent call capacity, which significantly limited usefulness in a business setting.

“Capacity increases, along with improved range and performance will open the door for much greater acceptance of femtocells as a viable business technology.”

Last month Airvana released a study showing that data traffic on smartphones creates a “load multiplier effect”.

This means that although smartphones don’t generate as data traffic as USB modem-equipped laptops, they can still contribute to ‘network clogging’.

According to Airvana’s just one smartphone can generates eight times the network signaling load of a USB modem-equipped laptop.