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Femto Forum Announces Winners of The Femtocell Industry Awards 2010
[June 24, 2010]

Femto Forum Announces Winners of The Femtocell Industry Awards 2010


(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) London, UK -- The Femto Forum, the independent industry and operator association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide, today announced the winners of the Femto Forum Femtocell Industry Awards 2010. The awards recognize outstanding achievement within, and contributions to, the femtocell industry. The awards were presented at a gala dinner at the Femtocells World Summit in London last night.



The winners are: 1. Award Category: Residential femtocell access point design and technology innovation Award Winner: Huawei Home Media Centre The residential market for femtocells is clearly the driver for attaining mass-market volumes, enabling improved coverage, data offload and new service opportunities. In order to gain traction and consumer acceptance, there need to be persuasive reasons for purchase - and also value-added features to protect against future churn. Huawei's Home Media Center includes a broad set of audiovisual capabilities such as video storage, on top of the femto module, which can help it attain a permanent role in a subscriber's home," agreed the judges.

2. Award Category: Greater femtocell (enterprise and other) design and technology innovation Award Winner: Ubiquisys Colo-Node HSPA Metro Femtocell One of the areas of femtocell technology in which there is intense carrier interest is the metrozone, and the potential to make small outdoor cells part of an urban build-out. Ubiquisys has come up with a very early product for this much discussed market, an innovation that brings real world metro femtocells a big step closer to reality, agreed the judges.


3. Award Category: Femtocell network element design and technology innovation Award Winner: NEC Femto-Share No different than in their macro-cell networks, operators are looking for ways to keep the cost of deploying a femtocell in check. While there was no shortage of impressive network innovations submitted for this years awards, NECs focus on costs combined with standards and scalability particularly as operators look to launch services across markets helped its FemtoShare and FemtoCloud offers to stand apart, agreed the judges.

4. Award Category: Femtocell application concept Award Winner: Airvana Femto Family Tablet As the femtocell industry matures and commercial launches multiply, it is increasingly important to develop unique applications to help drive demand for femtocells. The Airvana Femto Family Tablet stands out as a compelling application that could deliver real value to both operators and end-users based on unique femtocell features such as presence," agreed the judges.

5. Award Category: Progress in commercial deployment Award Winner: picoChip picoXcell femtocell SoC family picoChip's involvement in such a large portion of the commercial femtocell services today is a clear indication of progress in commercial deployment.

The sheer volume of femtocell chips that the vendor has shipped is further evidence of commercial momentum in the market, agreed the judges.

6. Award Category: Commercial launch Award Winner: AT&T 3G MicroCell National Deployment AT&Ts 3G MicroCell deployment with Cisco caught the judges eyes for two crucial reasons. First and foremost, it emphasised the importance of the customer at the heart of the femtocell experience, positioning technology very much as an enabler, rather than an end in itself. Secondly, the deployment is on a national scale, which given the US markets size adds an additional layer of complexity, agreed the judges.

7. Award Category: Contribution to femtocell standards Award Winner: Airvana Standards Team led by Doug Knisely, VP of technology There have been many outstanding contributions to femtocell standards and selecting one above another proved very difficult for the judges indeed this was one of the closest categories of all. After much discussion the judges decided that they would prefer the spirit of this award to tend more towards clear individual contributions and on that basis the work of Doug Knisely stood out as being particularly important and demonstrating great dedication over extended periods. The femtocell industry is indeed in his debt, agreed the judges.

8. Award Category: Enabling technology Award Winner: Continuous Computing & picoChip The worlds first LTE femtocell reference design The Continuous Computing and picoChip LTE reference design is a great example of an enabling technology that is necessary to kick start development of LTE femtocells. The timing of this reference design is critical for the introduction of LTE femtocells as operators begin to rollout the first LTE networks. At the same time there is a growing understanding of the importance of multi-tier cellular architectures as we move from 3G to 4G and as networks begin to cope with user demand for capacity. The judges wanted to recognize the role of this crucial component in what is likely to become a necessary part of future 4G networks, agreed the judges.

9. Award Category: Judges Choice Award Winner: Vodafone Sure Signal While we in the industry have known about femtocells for many years, the wider public have been unaware of their existence and benefits. The Vodafone marketing campaign changed all that. In a well-crafted and multi-faceted campaign they showed consumers how they could achieve coverage in their home and changed the role and perception of cellular communications. They have done a great deal to advance the success of femtocells and fully deserve to be recognised for this, agreed the judges.

10. Award Category: Award for Individual Contribution to the Femto Forum Award Winner: Gordon Mansfield, AT&T The Femto Forums work is driven mainly by theefforts of individuals from within our member organisations. Froman impressive shortlist,the judging panel selected Gordon Mansfield,ExecutiveDirectoratAT&T, as theindividual who has made the single biggest difference to the progressof the Forum. Gordon has been a major force in developing consensus positions among operators and other stakeholders on a range of femtocell related issues. He has been a regular contributor at Femto Forum plenaries and sponsored conferences, as well as being a tireless promoter of femtocells to the wireless industry as a whole by speaking in support of femtocells at numerous industry events.Besides his own time commitments he has worked to assign the right AT&T individuals to contribute in the working groups and SIGs of the Femto Forum. We are very pleased to be able to recognise his dedication to the worldwide acceptance of femtocell technology through this award, said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum.

11. Award Category: Chairmans Award Award Winner: Karim Sharf, TraC "Most of the Femto Forums work is driven by the efforts of individuals from within our member organisations and a huge number have contributed their time and skills to the Forum in the past year and all deserve my considerable thanks. However, one of our key goals we had in the last year was to make tangible progress towards our vision of an open, interoperable ecosystem for femtocells. To that end, in March we ran the first plugfest for UMTS femtocells, which was widely supported by over 20 vendors. Karim Sharf was instrumental in supporting and coordinating that process and his level of contribution to the Forum's aims has been outstanding, said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum.

The judges were enormously impressed with the high calibre of award submissions which reflect the continued growth and strength of innovation within the femtocell industry, said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum. The femtocell industry has seen spectacular growth over the past year. Growing numbers of operator deployments across Asia, North America and Europe may have stolen the headlines but in the background the industry has been paving the way for the next generation of rollouts which will incorporate exciting new services and extend beyond the home into the enterprise and outdoors. These awards recognize and reward all this progress and our congratulations go to the winners and all those who participated.

The awards were open to the whole industry and were judged independently of the Femto Forum by a panel of distinguished analysts, journalists and industry experts, chaired by William Webb, Director of Technology Resources,Ofcom.

For more information on the Femtocell Industry Awards, please visit: http://www.femtoforum.org/awards2010/index.php.

About The Femto Forum Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operators network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections. The Femto Forum (www.femtoforum.org) has been set up to promote the wide-scale adoption of femtocells. It has over 120 members including over 55 operators representing 1,4 billion mobile subscribers 27% of the global total. The Forum supports and drives the adoption of industry wide standards and common architectures to enable the widespread adoption & deployment of femtocells by operators around the world. It also directs and implements a multi-faceted marketing campaign to raise the profile, drives technology development & deployment and promotes the potential of femto solutions among industry stakeholders, journalists, analysts, regulators, special interest groups, standards bodies and consumers.

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