Wanted: Femto-Aware DevicesWanted: Femto-Aware Devices

1:40 PM -- A new report from Dean Bubly at Disruptive Analysis Ltd. brings up a rather awkward point for future femtocell services. Bubly argues that certain changes in handsets will have to be made so that they will work better with the home base stations. (See Operators Feel Femto Frustration.)

For early 3G femto services, 3G-capable handsets won't need any changes. But to get to future femtozone home networking services, where certain applications are available when phones come into range of the femtocell, Bubly finds that handsets will need to be "aware" of the femtocell at the radio and application level. And today's 3G handsets are not optimized in that way. This is no surprise to the femto community, and it's mentioned a few times on this industry blog. But is anyone actually working on these handset changes with device makers?

— Michelle "Bubly" Donegan, European Editor, Unstrung