Roke Develops 3G Wide Area Coverage Femtocell

Roke Manor Research announced a small form factor 3G Wide Area Coverage Femtocell with a 40km range.
The product supports up to twelve simultaneous users, with Release 5 HSDPA, and a software upgrade to Release 6 HSUPA. It is based on picoChip's silicon.


Roke said its solution could be used to cost-effectively serve sparsely-populated rural areas that are conventionally thought of as uneconomic, or to quickly deploy cellular coverage, for example as 'instant infrastructure' to help emergency services after a natural disaster.


Prasid Shah, Business Sector Manager at Roke, said: "Previously the best range femtocell technology could deliver was two kilometres, useful for wireless services on a campus, but uneconomic for network operators that would have to deploy large numbers in order to fill signal black holes in the countryside."http://www.roke.co.uk/communications/enhanced-femtocell.html