Sony, Toshiba, Qualcomm join the Femto Forum
- — 16 April, 2009 05:17
Consumer electronics giants Sony and Toshiba have joined the Femto Forum, an industry organization whose role is to push femtocells. Qualcomm has also been added to the membership roster, the Femto Forum announced on Wednesday.
Femtocells are small base stations that can improve indoor coverage and increase capacity. When a user is making calls and surfing the Web with a phone or laptop equipped with wireless broadband, signals are sent via the femtocell and a fixed broadband connection. They also allow carriers to offload users from the regular mobile network and save money on backhaul capacity.
Today's femtocells have the same form factor as a wireless router. But when companies like Sony and Toshiba show an interest it opens the door for TVs and set-top boxes to have built-in femtocells, according to Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum.
Sony is not ready to talk about specific product plans, but given the potential of femtocells it has joined the Femto Forum to monitor developments more closely, according to a Sony spokesman.
If femtocells are to be integrated in a wide variety of consumers electronics then chip costs will have to come down and that is where Qualcomm will play an important role. The company will help increase volumes and cut costs, as well as develop chipsets customized for femtocells, according to Saunders.
Qualcomm didn't reply to calls about the company joining the Femto Forum. But this isn't the first time it has shown an interest in femtocells. Last year, the company invested in femtocell vendor ip.access.
The use of femtocells has slowly started to take off, primarily in Asia and North America. During the rest of 2009 they will be launched in Europe as well, according to Saunders. Operators will also start launching the first services beyond offering better coverage and tariffs and will take advantage of the fact that operators will know that users are at home when connecting via the femtocell, he said.
Cable & Wireless, chip maker Octasic and Thai mobile operator True Move have also joined the Femto Forum, according to a statement.
numisirow
Wed 18/01/2012 - 22:13
I've always been a loser but I've never realized it until a few years ago. Never was good with people, and until very late in life I thought the only way to make friends and please people was to do and be everything they wanted us to. I shaped my personality on that of those I wanted to be friends with. I wasn't myself. So I was bullied, beaten, mocked, taken advantage of and such.
Then there were the parental units. Work took them away a lot, and the little time we spent together was them saying constantly I behaved like a lunatic and if I didn't behave properly I was to be commited to an institution. What a great thing to say to a child, right? My whole family, though small, started to see me this way. I was the crazy one, the child that never said anything that made sense, the child who always had to be watched lest he break, stole or severely damaged anything. Well, movin' on...
Let's see...School: Check; Parents/Family: Check; Work - Check my other story "damned if you do..."; That leaves married life.
I don't have to tell you about my love life, use your imagination under these circumstances. I met my future wife and eight years later we got married. Best and fastest day of my entire life. I later found out that my marriage isn't a partnership, but a domination. She's the dominating one, I'm the dominated one.
So at this point I really start thinking like that famous Demotivator poster with the picture of a sinking ship that says «It may be that your goal in life is to serve as a warning to others.». I looked around and realized that no one respected me, people saw me as a child of 5 in a 30 year-old body, the lunatic mad prankster who never took anything seriously and never did anything right. I had one last chance to prove myself to the world: to have children of my own, to make others around me see that I too could make something right, something beautiful. Then the Doctor told me I couldn't have children. I was sterile. No chance in Hell.