Femtocells
Overview
Interest in the emerging femtocell market has grown tremendously over the past several months. Femtocells, or Home NodeB’s (HNB), are small, low-cost cellular access points designed to provide improved mobile network coverage within buildings such as private homes and small-scale enterprises. For mobile devices, femtocells operate like base stations, but with much lower power levels. Femtocells are connected to the operator’s core network via DSL or cable broadband connection. They are available on the market for a wide range of cellular standards including WCDMA/HSPA, CDMA2000®, WiMAX™ and in the future also LTE.
Femtocells operate in an environment of macro base stations. To enable smooth integration into and operation within an existing network, femtocell manufacturers and chipset vendors alike need to manage interference scenarios, implement standard- and user-specific requirements and ensure high product quality at the lowest possible costs.
Standardization
3GPP have included the femtocell approach for WCDMA/HSPA, in the radio performance requirement specification TS 25.104 and the base station conformance specification TS 25.141 from release 8 onwards. The femtocell concept is also part of the CDMA2000®, LTE and WiMAX specifications.
Rohde & Schwarz test solutions
Rohde & Schwarz offers an attractive portfolio of test and measurement solutions for every stage of femtocell testing from design and production right through to network deployment. This includes optimized solutions for production testing where cost of test plays a major role. Rohde & Schwarz multi-standard platforms for signal generation and spectrum/signal analysis enable the detailed analysis of the radio performance and characteristics applicable for all common cellular standards including WCDMA/HSPA, CDMA2000®, LTE and WiMAX. Recommended signal generators and analyzers for Femtocell testing include the R&S®SMU200A, R&S®SMJ100A and the R&S®SMBV100A vector signal generators, as well as the R&S®FSQ signal analyzer, R&S®FSL spectrum analyzer, and R&S®FSV signal and spectrum analyzer.
Sophisticated drive test solutions, such as the R&S®TSMQ radio network analyzer, plus the efficient R&S®ROMES drive test software, or the R&S®ROMES2GO 3GPP walk test system are ideal tools for network planning and deployment.
The R&S®CMU300 universal radio communication tester is a unique solution for functional testing during production.
Rohde & Schwarz is an active contributor to standardization bodies such as 3GPP, 3GPP2, IEEE 802.16 and WiMAX Forum®, with special focus on the working groups defining the performance requirements and test specifications.
