Apparently the fixed-mobile convergence market is on the brink of very interesting times, according to analysts at ABI Research anyway.
While so far most fixed-to-mobile solutions have been UMA-based, such as T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home service in the U.S. and similar services offered by Orange in France, Spain and the United Kingdom, Sprint’s new femtocell-based Airave solution could create competition in the convergence market.
And even as ABI Research predicts a total of 103 million access points of both types will be in service by 2013, vice president and research director Stuart Carlaw said in a statement: “We expect cellular-based femtocells to have taken over the baton from UMA- and SiP-based Wi-Fi solutions by 2013, seizing 62% of the market…Although UMA-based Wi-Fi solutions have seen early gains in greenfield markets, these solutions have not proliferated much outside their current carrier footprints. This can be attributed partly to the carriers’ desire to assess femtocell developments, but also to lingering concerns regarding the concept of Wi-Fi based fixed-mobile convergence.”
via Cellular News