002-regulatory-aspects-femtocells.pdf

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Regulatory Aspects of Femtocells v2December 2013

002.05.03

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Report title: Regulatory Aspects of Femtocells Issue date: 01 December 2013 Version: 002.05.03

Scope

This white paper has been produced by the Small Cell Forum on behalf of its members to assist regulators who wish to understand the benefits and potential regulatory issues associated with femtocells.


Executive summary


This paper includes a discussion of:

• What defines a femtocell – this section highlights that femtocells are intelligent low power access points deployed in consumer premises but that they also remain firmly under operator control and as such are quite different to cellular boosters.

• Commercial launches of femtocells – this topic is described in more detail in the full series of Informa Telecoms and Media Small Cell Market status reports available on the Forum website but includes highlights such as 46 commercial deployments of small cells having been noted across 25 countries as at December 2012.

• Standardisation – this section highlights significant progress in the international standards bodies to include femtocells which has been aided by interaction with the Small Cell Forum. In particular both 3GPP and 3GPP2 include definitions of femtocell specific extensions to their existing network architectures and have worked to define interfaces, RF limits and security interfaces within these. The Broadband Forum has also standardised operation and maintenance data models for small cells in coordination with the Small Cell Forum in the form of TR-196.

• Regulatory benefits of small cells – this highlights the three key areas where femtocells can benefit regulators which include: • Improved access • Better spectrum efficiency • Innovation and technology

• The regulatory challenges and their solutions as viewed by the Forum – this highlights that the general consensus amongst regulators is that minimum changes are required to existing licence conditions to accommodate femtocells due to the femtocell remaining under operator control at all times. Minor regulatory modifications needed internationally to allow femtocell deployments have included relaxing the requirement for all base station categories to be installed by qualified personnel and removing the requirement for the location of all base stations to be logged with the regulator in the case of femtocells.

Overall the paper highlights that while there are regulatory concerns surrounding femtocells that most of these have been studied and found not to be an issue due to the femtocell remaining under operator control and the strict authentication and security mechanisms associated with femtocells. One potential area of regulatory challenge highlighted is that of lawful intercept of traffic in Local IP Access (LIPA) scenarios where femtocell traffic is not routed back into the operator’s core network.


Contents

1. Introduction .....................................................................1 2. What are Femtocells? .......................................................2 3. Commercial launches ........................................................5 4. Standardisation ................................................................6 4.1 3GPP Femtocell Standardisation ............................................ 6 4.2 Broadband Forum Standardisation ......................................... 7 4.3 3GPP2 Femtocell Standardisation........................................... 7 4.4 WiMAX Forum Femtocell Standardisation ................................ 7 4.5 Open Mobile Alliance ............................................................ 8 4.6 Products ............................................................................. 8 5. Regulatory benefits of Femtocells ....................................9 6. Small Cell Forum Approach to Regulation ....................... 10 7. Regulatory Issues Associated with Femtocells ............... 11 8. Status of femtocell regulation internationally ................ 13 9. Request for information ................................................. 15 10. Contact Information ....................................................... 16 Abbreviations ............................................................................ 17 References ................................................................................ 18

Tables Table 3-1 Femtocell Commercial services as of Q4 2012 (46 in 25 countries) ........ 5 Figures Figure 2-1 Typical Femtocell Deployment Scenario ............................................. 2 Figure 2-2 Different femtocell deployment applications ....................................... 4

Report title: Regulatory Aspects of Femtocells Issue date: 01 December 2013 Version: 002.05.03 1

1. Introduction



2. What are Femtocells?

Femtocells are low-power access points, providing wireless voice and broadband services to customers in homes, offices – or even outdoors. A typical deployment scenario is shown below.

Figure 2-1 Typical Femtocell Deployment Scenario

The Small Cell Forum believes there are key attributes of femtocells, which distinguish femtocells from other technologies.

A femtocell is a low-power wireless access point, incorporating all of the following attributes:

• Using mobile technology: Femtocells use fully standard wireless protocols over the air to communicate with standard mobile devices, including mobile phones and a wide range of other mobile-enabled devices. Qualifying standard protocols include GSM, W-CDMA, LTE, Mobile WiMAX, CDMA and other current and future protocols standardised by 3GPP, 3GPP2 and the IEEE, which collectively comprise the technologies included in the ITU-R definition of IMT. The use of such protocols allows femtocells to provide services to several billion existing mobile devices worldwide and to provide services which users can access from almost any location as part of a wide-area network.

• Operating in licensed spectrum: By operating in spectrum licensed to the service provider, femtocells allow operators to provide assured quality of service to customers over the air, free from harmful interference but making efficient use of their spectrum.


• Generating coverage and capacity: As well as improving indoor coverage, femtocells also create extra network capacity, serving a greater number of users with high data-rate services. They differ in this from simple repeaters or ‘boosters’ which may only enhance the coverage.

• Over Internet-grade backhaul: Femtocells backhaul their data over internet-grade broadband connections, including DSL and cable, using standard internet protocols. This may be over a specific Internet-service provider’s network, over the Internet itself or over a dedicated link.

• Cost Effective: The large volumes envisaged for femtocells will allow substantial economies of scale, driving efficiencies in manufacturing and distribution in a manner similar to the consumer electronics industry and likely with costs comparable with access points for other wireless technologies.

• Self-organising and self-managing: Femtocells can be installed by the end customer. They set themselves up to operate with high performance according to the local and network-wide conditions regarding radio, regulatory and operator policies, with no need for intervention by the customer or operator. They continue to adjust themselves over time as the customer, operator and regulator needs evolve to maximise performance and reliability.

• Control maintained by licensed operators: Femtocells only operate within parameters set by the licensed operator. While they have a high degree of intelligence to automatically ensure that they operate at power levels and frequencies which are unlikely to create interference, the limits on these parameters are always set by operators, not the end user. The operator is always able to create or deny service to individual femtocells or users. This control is maintained whether the femtocell itself is owned by the operator or the end user.

Femtocells started as a means of delivering services to residential environments. This remains a core application for femtocells and it enables femtocell technology to be produced in large volumes and low costs. However, femtocells are not limited to this application and individual femtocells come in various hardware types, depending on their transmit power and capacity to allow their use in a wide range of applications. Current applications include:

• Residential: Femtocells are installed indoors within the home by the end user and may be stand-alone devices or integrated with other technology such as residential gateways, delivering fixed-mobile convergence. Access to the residential femtocell will often be closed - restricted to a specified group of users – but may also be open to all registered users in some cases.

• Enterprise: Enterprise femtocell deployments are in small office/home office situations, in branch offices or in large enterprise buildings. Femtocells for this purpose typically support additional functionality than residential devices such as handover between femtocells, integration with a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) and local call routing. They are primarily used indoors, but can also be used to serve a corporate campus. Installation is typically managed by the carrier, but can be achieved by the enterprise itself or its IT subcontractors. Access may be closed or open. Depending on the coverage area of the access point the small cell may be better described as a picocell than a femtocell.

• Operator: A wide variety of applications where operators use femtocells to solve specific coverage, capacity or service issues in both indoor and outdoor environments. These are usually open access. They are installed by the operator or by third parties under the operator’s direction. Examples of these


include urban deployments on street furniture (frequently called “metrocells”) in demand hot spots to ease capacity bottlenecks or rural deployments to provide coverage to so called “not-spot” villages where there is no existing cellular service. Again depending on the coverage area of the access point the small cell may be better described as a picocell than a femtocell.

• Others: These application classes are not exclusive and it is expected that other innovative ideas for the application of femtocells, which are already emerging, will become increasingly widely deployed; for example on aircraft or on passenger ferries. In all cases the essential attributes of femtocells described earlier will be observed, enabling full compliance with relevant local customer, operator and regulatory requirements.

Figure 2-2 Different femtocell deployment applications


3. Commercial launches

As at December 2012, 46 operators had launched commercial services in 25 countries. Further launches are expected throughout 2013 with a further 19 small cell deployment commitments from operators listed in the fourth quarter 2012 Informa Telecoms and Media Small Cell Market update for the Forum. Informa Telecoms & Media also expects the femtocell market to experience significant growth over the next few years, reaching just under 91 million small cells in the market by the end of 2016.

The latest list of operator commitments as at the end of 2012 is shown below. The full Informa Telecoms and Media Small Cell Market Status December 2012 report is available on the Small Cell Forum’s website.

Operator Country Operator Country Sprint US Vodafone Spain StarHub Singapore SoftBank Japan Verizon Wireless US Vodafone Qatar Vodafone UK KDDI Japan AT&T US Vodafone Greece SFR France Movistar Spain NTT DoCoMo Japan T-Mobile UK China Unicom China MoldTelecom Molodova Optimus Portugal Vodafone New Zealand SingTel Singapore SK Telecom South Korea Vodafone Ireland Network Norway Norway TOT Thailand Yes Optus Australia Vodafone Australia Megafon Russia Vodafone Italy Vodafone Hungary Orange France Orange Romania MTC Russia Vodafone Czech Republic Beeline Russia Vodafone Netherlands Cosmote Greece Vodafone Romania Vodafone Portugal Mosaic US Free Mobile France Three UK China Mobile China Zain Bahrain O2 UK Bouygues Telecom France Vodafone Germany Vodafone Greece

Table 3-1 Femtocell Commercial services as of Q4 2012 (46 in 25 countries)


4. Standardisation

The Small Cell Forum does not publish standards itself. However it acts as market representation partners to 3GPP, 3GPP2 and WiMAX Forum, all of which are standardising various forms of femtocells. We also have a cooperation agreement with Broadband Forum which is standardising management protocols for femtocells, starting with WCDMA [1].

A summary of status is provided below. It is notable that all of the major mobile standards organisations have foreseen the need for femtocells to support future mobile services and have worked actively to progress standards in a short time period. A detailed overview of 3G femtocells standards is available in 044.01.01 Guidelines to 3G Standards www.scf.io/doc/044

4.1 3GPP Femtocell Standardisation

• 3GPP has standardized WCDMA femtocells (known as Home NodeB as a logical network node and HomeBS for its RF specifications) in its Release 8 specification and has included initial support for LTE femtocells (known as Home eNodeB). This was functionally frozen in December 2008 and some remaining elements of the specification were finalized in March 2009 and June 2009.

• 3GPP Release 9 was functionally frozen during December 2009 and extends significantly by fully supporting LTE femtocells for the first time thereby allowing upcoming rollouts to incorporate the technology from the outset. It also supports a greater number of simultaneous users, emergency warning systems and both private and public usage models.

• Release 9 provides end-to-end support for LTE femtocells, including all radio and OAM aspects, enabling the development of the first standardised devices. It also supports hybrid access so femtocells can be used in retail environments to provide open access to customers yet also provide prioritised usage for a closed group such as staff. WCDMA uplink bandwidth requirements have been revised allowing a major increase in the amount of calls that can be simultaneously supported. Finally, the standard also supports public warning services so that areas without macro coverage can receive emergency messages such as Tsunami warnings.

• 3GPP Release 10 was functionally frozen in March 2011 (with detailed protocols becoming stable around 3 months after this) introduced support for mobility enhancements for Home eNodeBs. The Stage 2 architecture for the enhancements was ratified in the RAN Plenary in December 2010, which introduces a new Iurh interface between the femtocell access points and supports soft and hard handover between femtocells. Other important additions to Release 10 include Self Optimizing Networks (SON), Selective IP Traffic Offload (SIPTO) and Local IP Access (LIPA).

• 3GPP release 11 was functionally frozen in September 2012 (with detailed protocol work still on-going into 2013). Small cell related additions in release 11 include: • Additional security measures added to TS 33.320 to all for the direct X2

and Iurh interfaces between HeNBs and HNBs respectively introduced in releases 9 and 10.

• Further investigations into mobility issues related to small cells. The results of these are captured in TR 37.803 and TR 36.839.


4.2 Broadband Forum Standardisation

• Broadband Forum TR-196 “Femto Access Point Service Data Model” was published in April 2009.

• Issue 2 of TR-196 includes enhancements for LTE and CDMA2000 networks and was published in November 2011. A new TR-262 was also issued alongside this to define “Femto Component Objects” which captures generic FAP status elements which might span multiple FAP services within the same device.

4.3 3GPP2 Femtocell Standardisation

The 3GPP2 formal publication of femtocell specifications was published during March 2010. The following list describes the technical specifications of the new standard:

• SIP/IMS is used in the core network to integrate femtocell services, allowing a variety of components from different vendors to interoperate.

• Enhanced System Selection is supported for improved handset battery life, faster femtocell and macrocell system acquisition, improved handoff between femtocell and macrocell and femtozone awareness.

• Local and Remote IP Access is supported, allowing allowing packet data traffic to be directly offloaded from femtocells to customers’ home networks, corporate intranets, or to the public Internet. When mobile devices are operating outside of the femtocell subsystem, the 3GPP2 specifications also include a remote access capability to allow mobile devices to connect to the user’s IP network at home and exchange IP data with their home network via a secure remote tunnel

The 3GPP2 specifications provide a complete security architecture that allows CDMA2000 femtocell networks to support large numbers of femtocells via standard commercial IPsec/IKEv2-based security gateways. The 3GPP2 security architecture and protocols are compatible with the security architecture for 3GPP radio technology-based femtocell devices. This architecture not only protects system operators’ core networks, but also provides for highly secure authentication of FAP devices using secure certificate-based mechanisms and protocols that are widely deployed and validated for security, robustness, manageability, and scalability.

4.4 WiMAX Forum Femtocell Standardisation

The WiMAX Forum and the Femto Forum (now Small Cell Forum) announced the publication of the first WiMAX™ femtocell standard during June 2010 (http://www.smallcellforum.org/newsstory-98-percent-of-mobile-operators-say-small-cells-essential-for-future-of-networks).

The specifications incorporate a security framework that allows WiMAX networks to support a large number of access points via standard commercial IPSec based security gateways. This phase of specifications also contains simple Self Organizing Network (SON) capabilities to allow automatic configuration of large numbers of femtocells. Future revisions will further enhance the SON capabilities to standardize automatic interference management between femtocells and macro base stations.

The standard also incorporates support for three usage models to support different deployment scenarios such as residential, enterprise and outdoor environments. The ‘Open Model’ allows the femtocell to operate like a normal WiMAX base station by allowing anyone to use the service; ‘Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) Closed’ allows a


limited number of pre-allocated subscribers to use the femtocell. The ‘Closed Subscriber Group (CSG) Open’ extends the previous model to allow the subscriber to add users themselves.

4.5 Open Mobile Alliance

In March 2011 the Small Cell Forum released their first services API which defines how to create and write new mobile applications based on small cell technologies. In February 2012 the Forum announced that it was working with Open Mobile Alliance to develop a small cell services API based on this foundation API from the Forum.

4.6 Products

All major small cell infrastructure vendors are members of Small Cell Forum, with products including femtocell access points, access gateways, security gateways, dedicated integrated circuits and software. A full showcase of femtocell products is available on the Small Cell Forum website (www.smallcellforum.org).

http://www.smallcellforum.org/


5. Regulatory benefits of Femtocells

Femtocells create several opportunities to meet the objectives which regulators set out to achieve. Some of these are as follows:

• Improved Access: Femtocells provide a cost effective means of improving consumer access to mobile services. They improve coverage in hard-to-reach indoor environments, without the need to deploy large numbers of outdoor base stations. They deliver truly broadband mobile services within existing spectrum. In rural and remote areas, femtocells allow customers to access services which would otherwise be hard for operators to serve economically, thereby promoting inclusion, reducing the digital divide and expanding opportunities for remote communities to be fully connected.

• Spectrum efficiency: Femtocells can reuse existing mobile operator spectrum for operation, including both currently unused frequencies and frequencies already used by outdoor sites. They also open up the use of higher frequencies whose range might be excessively limited for wide-area operation, increasing the overall available spectrum. They can also operate happily in lower frequency bands, reducing their transmit power accordingly to avoid harmful interference.

• Innovation and opportunity: By reducing the deployment and operating cost of mobile broadband services, femtocells increase the value of services for both consumers and service providers. Most significantly, they make a broadband connection more attractive to consumers by easily enabling the use of an operator-compatible mobile device in the home – the consumer does not have to think about what device or what network to use when transitioning to or from a home environment. They increase the range of service models available to operators, encouraging competition and efficiency. They also enable newer technologies to be delivered to customers more quickly and they provide a platform for delivering new applications and services to existing devices with attractive tariffs.


6. Small Cell Forum Approach to Regulation

The Small Cell Forum is committed to working with its members and international regulators to encourage a positive regulatory environment for femtocell deployments. In particular, the Forum’s regulatory objectives are:

• To encourage a consistent regulatory environment in a wide range of administrations, giving operators and vendors access to wider markets and thereby generating economies for providers and consumers alike.

• To assist regulators in understanding the regulatory issues associated with femtocells and where necessary to clarify regulations to enable their citizens to gain full access to femtocell services.

• To ensure that any necessary clarification is identified and dealt with ahead of the time at which operators wish to provide services, permitting the benefits to be achieved in a timely fashion.

• To provide Small Cell Forum members with knowledge of the status of the regulatory environment for femtocells across the world.


7. Regulatory Issues Associated with Femtocells

As a new technology, femtocells do raise questions as to the way they fit with existing regulations. The Small Cell Forum’s members have considered these questions and in general believe that very few changes, if any, to regulations are required. Indeed, some environments may not need any changes at all. Some of the questions which are commonly asked in this context are as follows:

What is the impact of femtocells on spectrum licensing? Femtocells operate as part of the operator’s existing network. The operator remains in control of the femtocell at all times and is therefore able to continue to comply with their existing technical licence conditions.

What about public health concerns? Small Cell Forum members are designing their products to fully comply with the guidelines for human exposure to electromagnetic emissions issued by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and other relevant regulatory authorities. A brochure has been created to explain these issues, which is available from our web site at www.smallcellforum.org

What power levels do femtocells transmit? Femtocells operate at very low transmit powers, radiating less than 0.1 watts (i.e. less than standard wireless LAN access points) and more usually operating at powers well below 0.02 watts. They also typically allow mobile phones to work at very low powers, increasing their battery life and reducing interference. Further information on these issues is available in [2]

How do operators stop users transmitting with femtocells on unauthorised frequencies or locations? Femtocells are highly intelligent devices, quite different from the illegal ‘boosters’ which are installed without an operator’s permission. They remain bound to the operator network, operating only after mutual authentication has taken place between the network and the femtocell itself. Femtocells sense their location using a variety of technical means. GPS can be one of these, but they can also sense the surrounding network cells, and use data regarding the hardware and IP addresses of the DSL or cable network they are interconnected with, in order to confidently provide their location details back to the operator. This ensures that the femtocell only operates on frequencies and power levels which are both legal and which provide the right level of service to the customer’s home without interfering with the operator’s own spectrum outside.

One way of thinking about this is to consider that cellphones do not cause interference problems when taken outside of the operator’s licensed market, because they are prevented by the network from transmitting on unlicensed frequencies in that area. Femtocells should not cause any greater concern, and for just the same reason.

Could femtocells be ‘hacked’? A key advantage of femtocells is that the customer does not need to configure the device - they simply plug it into their broadband connection and allow it to configure itself. In order for this to work, the femtocell and the network authenticate mutually and securely, so that the femtocell becomes a trusted part of the operator’s network and is fully controlled by the operator alone. The femtocell resists tampering by a variety of physical and electronic techniques so that the user cannot change the femtocell configuration and cause harmful or illegal interference - or indeed degrade the service which the user is paying to access via the femtocell.


Do femtocells comply with existing standards? Femtocells are designed to be compliant with the standards supporting the operator’s mobile technology of choice. Femtocell standards are part of the existing plans and roadmap for all the major families of mobile technology, including 3GPP, 3GPP2 and WiMAX Forum, supported by other groups such as the Broadband Forum.

How about the need to register base station locations? In some cases, existing licenses require operators to supply records of base station locations. While operators will often wish to know the location of their base stations for their own service and network management purposes, the need to supply records of every femtocell creates an excessive burden on operators and regulators alike. Such a requirement would also be disproportionate and inconsistent given that such records are not required for low power systems such as cordless phones and wireless LAN access points.

What other regulatory issues should be considered? In some administrations, there is a requirement for qualified personnel to install base stations, or for substantial sums to be charged for operation of each base station. While this may be acceptable for high powered conventional base stations, such requirements are excessive and unnecessary for low powered femtocells and will thoroughly undermine the benefits of femtocells for consumers. We suggest that such regulations not be applied to femtocells.

Are femtocells open or closed devices? Femtocells can support a variety of operating approaches with respect to user access. In many cases femtocells used in home will have a closed user group, with the femtocell customer controlling which mobile users can access the device. In other cases, often in the enterprise or outdoors, femtocells will be open or semi-open access. The choice of approach depends on the service being offered by the operator to the femtocell users. In all cases, however, only registered users of the relevant mobile network are permitted access, and the full authentication and security mechanisms typically used in mobile networks are applied.

Who owns the femtocells? Femtocells can enable a more flexible approach to provision of mobile networks, where the infrastructure may be owned by the end-user, the operator or another intermediary. The choice amongst these depends on the complete service package being offered and regulators are encouraged not to preclude any of these approaches.

Do femtocells always backhaul traffic to an operator’s core network? In some applications of femtocells, the majority of the traffic is likely to stay within the home or office network containing the femtocell, or the traffic may be directed via the internet, avoiding backhaul to the mobile core network. This can improve the quality of the service for the customer and reduces the cost of providing it. However, in some cases responsibility for some regulatory requirements such as the provision of lawful intercept capabilities may be unclear. Regulators are encouraged to provide clear guidance on such issues and are requested, in particular, to respond to the Small Cell Forum’s request for information on the regulatory requirements relating to Local IP Access for Femtocell Access Points, which can be found on the Small Cell Forum website at:

http://www.smallcellforum.org/Files/File/SCF_Local_IP_Access_Regulatory_Request.pdf


8. Status of femtocell regulation internationally

Several national and international regulatory bodies have taken specific steps to clarify issues of policy and regulation relating to femtocells.

• In Europe, the body responsible for developing measures to implement common radio spectrum policy initiatives across the 27 member states of the European Union is the Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC). In 2008 RSC considered spectrum issues for femtocells. It decided that, in view of the control which operators can exert over femtocells as part of their existing network, femtocells could operate under the existing spectrum licensing regimes of member states and there was no current need for RSC to take action. They also noted that the increased spectrum efficiency available from femtocells was a positive development [3](108):

“Noting that femtocells operate as part of the operator’s existing network (using the same frequencies) and that the operator remains in control of the femtocell at all times, it is reasonable therefore to assume that femtocells will comply with the existing technical licensing conditions in each specific case.”

• In Japan, noting that there were several aspects of the existing regulations which were not entirely aligned to femtocells, the Japanese regulators conducted a series of consultations during 2008, and announced the outcome in December 2008. The result was an amendment of relevant regulations which allows end users to operate recovery and facility transfers of femtocell base stations.

• In June 2009 the UK communications regulator Ofcom provided clarity on its approach to femtocell regulation [4]. It clarified that regulations on provision of emergency call location and national roaming access to emergency calls applied equally to femtocell users as to macrocell users. It also proposed to vary the existing operator 3G licences to remove the requirement to keep records of the location and technical details of femtocell equipment, recognising that this may be impractical for a wide deployment of femtocells. This clarity followed previous statements from Ofcom recognising the potential significance of femtocells, such as [5]:

“they form part of a vanguard of a long-promised technology that has the potential to enable new forms of competition across communications networks: fixed-mobile convergence.”

• In July 2009 the International Telecommunications Union [6] provided a common description of “Femto Access Nodes”, reflecting the current state of the industry and not constraining future developments. This included a similar set of characteristics to that described in Section 3

• In October 2009, in a speech at CTIA, Julius Genachowski, Chairman of FCC stated [7]: “ Spectrum is the oxygen of our mobile networks. While the short-term outlook for 4G spectrum availability is adequate, the longer-term picture is very different. I believe that that the biggest threat to the future of mobile in America is the looming spectrum crisis.” He proposed that the FCC will look at secondary markets to add more spectrum and will look to make its spectrum policies more flexible to encourage the use of unlicensed spectrum. He also said the FCC will encourage the use of smart antennas and femtocells.

• In September 2009 at the China Femtocell Symposium, Xie Feibo, Director of State Radio Regulatory Committee, MIIT stated : “Femtocell is an excellent


technology that integrates the technical advantages of both wireless and fix-line. From my point of view, Femtocell is worth to be adopted, and worth to be promoted greatly.”, while Hou Ziqiang, Commission Member of Telecom and Science Division, MIIT said “Currently we are facing a very serious challenge regarding to the dead zone of wireless telecommunications in cities, especially of 3G network indoor service. We noticed that Femtocell is very helpful and effective in resolving the weakness of network signal in cities. From my point of view, Femtocell, as a solution of family-based station, will have a very bright future.”

• In February 2010, the State Commission for Radio Frequencies (SCRF) was reported to have simplified the procedures for registration of femtocells (up to 25 mW in Moscow and 100 mW elsewhere) to permit their mass market introduction [8].

• In November 2010, the Taiwanese National Communications Committee (their highest level communications regulatory body) announced that they had approved the island’s telecoms carriers to supply femtocell units to enable them to extend mobile broadband connections to users’ houses [9].

• In January 2011, the FCC announced that adding new spectrum is not sufficient to meet traffic demand and that technologies including femtocells should be used, while a 35x increase in mobile traffic is expected in the next 5 years [10]: “We need to encourage more innovative and efficient uses of spectrum. We’ll continue to encourage dynamic spectrum sharing and secondary markets for spectrum, as well as development and deployment of femtocells, smart antenna technology, and devices that can access unlicensed spectrum like Wi-Fi to off-load traffic from cellular networks.”


9. Request for information

The Small Cell Forum is maintaining a register of applicable regulations in locations of interest to its members and helping to spread examples of regulatory best practice. To support this activity, we would welcome responses from regulators to the following questions:

1. Do you see benefits in permitting femtocell operation? Do you see any downsides?

2. Are femtocells currently permitted by your administration? Are there any regulations likely to restrict the use of femtocells?

3. Which are the relevant regulators and standards development organisations in your region?

4. Do you see a need to provide additional clarity on femtocell issues to operators in your region?

5. Has this white paper provided the information you require, or are there other issues you would like further information on?


10. Contact Information

The regulatory working group of the Small Cell Forum would be pleased to respond to further queries on regulatory aspects and to receive information relating to the regulatory status of femtocells within particular administrations.

Contact details:

Email: [email protected] Web: www.smallcellforum.org Postal: The Small Cell Forum PO Box 23 GL11 5WA UK

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.smallcellforum.org/


Abbreviations

3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project

3GPP2 Second Third Generation Partnership Project

CDMA Code Division Multiple Access

GSM Global System for Mobile Communications

ICNIRP International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

IMT International Mobile Telecommunications

ITU-R International Telecommunications Union - Radiocommunications

LTE Long Term Evolution

OMA Open Mobile Alliance

PBX Private Branch Exchange (private telephone network in a company)

WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access


References

1 Broadband Forum TR-196 “Femto Access Point Service Data Model”. This document specifies the data model for Femto Access Point remote management purposes.

2 “Femtocells and Health”, Small Cell Forum (with GSMA and MMF), SCF 01.001.02, scf.io/doc/001

3 Radio Spectrum Committee, “Regulatory Aspects of Femtocells”. RSCOM(08)40, European Commission, 2008.

4 “Ofcom and Femtocells: Regulation Principles”, Ofcom, Femtocells World Summit, June 2009.

5 Ofcom, “ Mobile citizens, mobile - Adapting regulation for a mobile, wireless world”, August 2008

6 ITU-R Working Party 5D, “Liaison statement to external organizations on femtocells, “Femto Access Nodes”, Document 5D\TEMP\195(Rev.1), July 2009.

7 http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-10369871-10356022.html 8 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-

8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.comnews.ru/index.cfm%3Fid%3D51059&prev=_m

9 http://news.cens.com/cens/html/en/news/news_inner_34275.html 10 http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0120/DOC-

304191A1.txt

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-10369871-10356022.html

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002-regulatory-aspects-femtocells.pdf

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