What is Femtocell

The femtocell is a low power and low cost base station which can be deployed inside an indoor building in a plug-and-play manner by the user him or herself. The femtocell is a wireless access point that connects standard mobile devices to a mobile operator’s network using residential DSL or cable broadband connection. The functionalities of a femto base station are almost the same as that of a typical macro base station. But the price of femto BS can be significantly lower because: i) a femto BS is expected to serve a small number of users and ii) a relatively low transmission power is enough to cover the service area. Deploying femtocell networks embedded in the macrocell coverage greatly benefits communication quality in variety of manners. Though femtocells are usually deployed in indoor environment to provide in-building coverage enhancements, service can be provided to outdoor users also in vicinity by deploying portable femtocells. A femtocell contains the components: i) Microprocessor, ii) Random access memory, iii) Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), iv) RF (Radio Frequency) transmitter, v) RF receiver, and vi) Power amplifier. The microprocessor is used for managing the radio protocol stack and associated baseband processing. The Random access memory is used for handling various data i.e. the collected information related to network traffic, interference condition and user mobility. The FPGA and other circuitry are used for managing the data encryption, hardware authentication and network time protocol. The RF transmitter, RF receiver, power amplifier (PA) and miscellaneous hardware components are used for non-essential functions. The femtocell in idle mode switches off the RF transmitter, RF receiver, miscellaneous hardware and the PA, thus resulting in power saving.

Femtocell is an access point base station used for data offloading in an indoor environment. The major requirement for this is a small base station that helps gain access to an available Internet connection for data offloading.

In telecommunications, a femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business.

Femtocell is a secure, low power and low cost cellular base station. It is usually allocated in an indoor region. It can serve limited number of users. It is connected to the core network through a security gateway which provides data transmission securely. Femtocell has a very small coverage area of 10-20m. Femtocell is also known as Home Node Base Station as it is generally deployed at indoor region. As the coverage area of a femtocell is very small, the power transmission by a femtocell is very low but the signal strength under its coverage is high.