South Korea's WiBro service providers are turning to femtocells in an attempt to widen mobile WiMAX coverage, which is likely to trigger fierce competition.
SK Telecom recently unveiled IB Cell, a business femtocell before the launch of service at the yearend, while KT announced its plan to start corporate service later this year and then home service next year.
Combining Wave 2 MIMO and SKT's access technology, IB Cell is easy to install and run even under unfavorable environment. With dramatically improved in-building voice quality, IB Cell will secure WiBro service of excellent quality, according to SKT.
KT emphasizes WiBro femtocells offer high bandwidth connections at home or office through single-mode terminals and increase opportunity of target marketing for operators on low-cost equipment.
SK Telecom says femtocells are smaller and cheaper, but their performance is comparable to macro base-stations. The carrier expects the mini base-stations will contribute to cost reduction and become wider in use as the most appropriate in-building solution for next generation network evolution.
There are also challenges that the service providers have to take up. KT takes problems with auto configuration, self-optimization, synchronization and inter-working with outdoor WiBro network as examples, but anticipates the solutions will be found during the Q1, 2009.
An official from a femtocell solution provider says, "Presently, SK Telecom has more technology issues to deal with than KT and therefore KT will be able to start the full-fledged service earlier."
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