Resource Management Strategies for Low Cost Access Points in Fixed Mobile Convergence

There is a great surge of interest recently in the fixed-mobile convergence from the telecom industry. This is supported by strong 3G operator interest in using the broadband penetration as a spring board to achieve cost effective delivery of the multimedia data for indoor coverage. Statistics indicated that more than 70% of the calls are made from end-users in indoor environments. Based on this trend, there is new impetus for low cost access point technology tailored to in-building coverage. The key technology elements used for this purpose are different from the general base stations or node Bs in the mobile networks. The technology is normally driven by low cost, low power and effective indoor coverage without interfering with the prevalent outdoor networks. In the near term, the technology is called femto cells in the industry and it is seen as a retrofit to the existing networks. Some analysts claim that in coming years millions of such femto cells will be deployed various countries and some major operators have been assessing this technology at the present time. The momentum gathered here is also evidence at the kick-start of the new Femto Cell Forum (www.femtoforum.org). There are some technology challenges exposed by this rapidly growing concept which paved the way to uncover some innovative solutions. This paper addresses two key items related to distributed resource management and scalable network management in the scenario that would be akin to the densely populated access points.