Femtocells Kick Apps

ip.access showed off its Facebook virtual fridge notes app, which essentially uses the presence information available on the femto to deliver messages. Here's how it works: Say you have pet fish, and while you're out of town, you want to remind your roommate to feed them when he gets home. [Ed. note: This is ip.access's example. I don't have any fish.] You can compose the reminder message on Facebook, which will be delivered to your roommate's phone as soon as he is within range of the femtocell at home. The femto recognizes that the roommate has arrived home and sends the message: "Feed the fish."



ip.access also made this work on the 3G iPhone using Apple's new push service in the 3.0 software. And the user interface on the iPhone actually looks like a fridge.

Motorola made a VoIP call over an EV-DO network in the U.S. using a SIP softphone and its CDMA femto embedded in a digital picture frame.

Sagem Télécommunications SA showed how a user can control her TV remotely from her cellphone when a femto is connected to a digital set-top box (STB). For example, from her mobile device, the user could turn the TV on or see what programs are being viewed at a certain time (which would come in handy for parents wanting to check whether their kids are actually doing their homework or watching TV). Users can also check whether the central heating is on at home. The intelligence for these apps resides in the residential gateway, but the femto brings in the cellphone, which can access these apps remotely.

In partnership with Mobica Ltd. , Ubiquisys demo'd an app that automatically downloads a user's latest podcast to his mobile phone as soon as he gets home. The femtocell's detection of when a user arrives home triggers the download to start automatically.

Pirelli Broadband Solutions showed what's possible when the cellphone is brought into the home network. The vendor hooked up two sets of digital TVs, STBs, and femtos (embedded in DSL gateways). The STBs enable IM sessions to be viewed on the TV and allow one user who's watching TV to see if his friend is online and what he's watching. So, if you want to ping your friend, you can send an IM from your cellphone and your friend gets the IM on his TV. The message is sent via the femtocell.

Airvana demonstrated the power a femto can put into the hands of parents of teenagers. The femto was programmed to send a text message to you, the parent, when your daughter arrived home from school, as well as when her boyfriend showed up at the house with their three friends. [Ed. note: Gotcha!]

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Vodafone UK 's commercial femto supplier, showed several presence demos. One involved sending a user's subscription e-magazine to her cellphone when she arrived home. Another involved a text notification to parents when their youngster arrived home.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. showed off a push service for when cellphones enter the femtocell's range. For example, entering the femtocell's coverage area would trigger the receipt of a multimedia messaging services (MMS) video.

Similar to Pirelli and Sagem, Thomson S.A. (NYSE: TMS; Euronext Paris: 18453) showed how femtocells can be integrated into the home network. The vendor also showed how users can turn their lights at home on and off using their mobile device.



— Michelle Donegan, European Editor, Unstrung