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The Femto Forum: Femto Forum Adopts Field-Proven Management Protocol To Facilitate Large-Scale Femtocell Deployments
[July 16, 2008]

The Femto Forum: Femto Forum Adopts Field-Proven Management Protocol To Facilitate Large-Scale Femtocell Deployments


(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
RDATE:16072008

London, UK -- The Femto Forum, the independent industry and operator
association that supports femtocell deployment worldwide, today
announces that its members have agreed to implement the Broadband
Forum's TR-069 "CPE WAN Management Protocol", a worldwide standard for
real-time management of customer premises equipment (CPE), as the basis
for the management protocol for femtocells.

Following its definition in 2004, approximately 30 million devices now
use this standard, making it robust and well-proven, with full
interoperability.

Management and provisioning of very high volumes of femtocells has been
a major concern for carriers; adopting TR-069 and being able to re-use
all the proven experience of that standard will enable femtocells to be
easily deployed and configured reliably, and in high volume.

Unlike traditional cellular equipment, femtocells will be deployed in
high volumes and installed by the subscriber, so the provisioning and
configuration must be completely automated and managed remotely by the
mobile operator. The TR-069 standard has proven it allows operators to
offer simple installation and provisioning; perform advanced
diagnostics and conduct remote firmware and service upgrades with
millions of end devices, in an extremely cost-effective manner. Most
importantly, it eliminates the need for operators to send technical
personnel on-site, a practice that will be unfeasible given millions of
units that are set to be rolled out. The two organizations plan to
continue working closely together to define extensions to TR-069 to add
additional femtocell capability to the standard.

"The remote management of consumer equipment like femtocell access
points is a vital tool for operators to introduce new
revenue-generating services and to consistently provide a high level of
service," said Simon Saunders, the Femto Forum's Chairman. "Femtocells
are sophisticated pieces of telecommunications equipment, but they are
also first and foremost consumer devices and as such they have to be
simple enough to be installed and used by the average consumer. Many
people have been concerned about the scalability of provisioning and
management for femtocells: with this initiative that concern is
addressed."

"Femtocells represent a very different approach to mobile network
architecture and therefore require a suitably different approach to
network management. The similarity to fixed broadband networks is
obvious so TR-069, the dominant standard for the management of
broadband gateways and other consumer devices, such as set top boxes,
VoIP devices, and storage devices, is the natural choice," said George
Dobrowski, The Broadband Forum's Chairman and President. "With
femtocells likely in many cases to be included in home gateways, this
makes the use of a common protocol especially fitting."

The two bodies have been working together over recent months to ensure
the protocol is able to meet the criteria of femtocells. The TR-069
protocol standardizes secure CPE auto-configuration practices and
incorporates other CPE management functions, including diagnostics and
troubleshooting, performance monitoring, and software/image management,
into a common framework. Some Femto Forum members have already adopted
the protocol into their existing solutions but today's agreement means
it will become the femtocell industry's first de facto management
standard.

In other news the forum also welcomes new members who are already


active in the working groups. These include: New Cell Inc (D/B/A
Cellcom),C&S Microwave Co Ltd, Epitiro, KTF, Tecom Co Ltd and Pioneer
Telephone Co-operative Inc. The Forum now has 84 members, close to 40%
of whom are operators representing over 810 million subscribers.

About The Femto Forum


Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in
licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile
operator's 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. The Forum will support
and drive the adoption of industry wide standards and common
architectures to enable the widespread adoption & deployment of
femtocells by operators around the world. It will direct and implement
a multi-faceted marketing campaign to raise the profile, drive
technology development & deployment and to promote the potential of
femto solutions among industry stakeholders, journalists, analysts,
regulators, special interest groups, standards bodies and consumers.

About the Broadband Forum

The Broadband Forum mission is to develop the full potential of
broadband.

Focused on home-to-core network and management solutions, our standards
empower providers to achieve more with their broadband deployment.

Established in 1994 as the ADSL Forum and later as the DSL Forum, the
Broadband Forum has seen its work over the past 14 years evolve from
addressing physical layer ADSL transport specifications to advanced
transport and management specifications for all forms of broadband. The
Broadband Forum's formal BroadbandSuiteT Release Program and all
technical reports are publicly available at www.broadband-forum.org

CONTACT: Oliver Chapman
Tel: +44 (0)7713 404 571
e-mail: [email protected]
Louise Hatton, The Broadband Forum
Tel: +44 (0)1159 486 901
e-mail: [email protected]
WWW: http://www.broadband-forum.org

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