Femtocells: The HOMESNET vision

This paper presents the vision shared by partners from the CELTIC project HOMESNET about Femto Base Station deployed at Home, i.e. Home Base Station (HBS). Three of the main aspects under study are presented. The challenges in HBS self-organizing, including femto-macro coexistence, are explained and methodology for successful self-organization is proposed. To achieve very low radio emission at home or constrained environment like hospitals, an architectural option for HBS relying on Radio over Fiber approach is proposed. Last, an innovative use case for HBS, allowing indoor emergency telemedicine scenarios, whereby, paramedics are able to seamlessly exploit HBS at the patient or neighboring apartment, is described. The expected impacts of the HOMESNET project and the planned next steps toward this vision are presented.