Friday, 29 June 2007

NETGEAR and Ubiquisys Team to Develop Femtocell Home Gateway

NETGEAR, a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking products, and Ubiquisys a developer of intelligent 3G femtocell access points for the residential market, announced yesterday their collaboration to deliver a comprehensive residential gateway with integrated DSL modem, Wi-Fi, VoIP and 3G femtocell technology.

The Ubiquisys ZoneGate femtocell is a plug-and-play 3G access point that uses a mobile subscriber’s DSL connection to transport voice and data calls to the core network using a range of standards-based interfaces.NETGEAR and Ubiquisys are working to build this functionality into NETGEAR’s wireless gateways in order to provide mobile operators with the means to interact with home networks via 3G broadband networks.

“Consumer demand is rising for high-quality, seamless and easy-to-use solutions that enable new applications such as fixed mobile convergence. Integrating Ubiquisys’ femtocell technology into NETGEAR products represents a natural progression in home networking,” said David James, director of service provider products at NETGEAR.

“Not only will this solution enable mobile operators to provide enhanced cellular coverage in the home, but it will also make it possible for consumers to access and control a range of home networking services via standard 3G phone handsets.”

It is anticipated that the NETGEAR gateway integrating Ubiquisys’ femtocell technology will be available for operator testing by Q4 2007, with commercial availability slated for early 2008.