3GPP: Standardization of Femtocells

Cellular system operators have identified the critical need for standardization of femtocell devices and their associated interfaces into the operators’ core networks as a critical requirement for the success of femtocell products. Driven by this demand, the UMTS/UTRAN standards community has been undertaking a large-scale and comprehensive effort to specify such standards for femtocell devices and systems that are based on the UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA family of radio access technologies. This article describes those standardization activities and provides an overview for the femtocell system architecture that has been developed within 3GPP.