Residential small cells
Residential femtocells, these are low-powered cellular base stations that sit inside the home, usually on the end of a home broadband connections such as DSL or cable. They may often share a box with a WiFi router.
Some vendors produce slightly higher powered versions of the small cells designed for use in enterprise applications.
The femtocell, known as a Home Node B (HNB) or HeNB in LTE versions, will support only a limited (typically single or low double figures) number of registered users. They can be managed from within the operators’ core architecture through a HNB management system, and connect to the core network through a HNB gateway. A Security Gateway instantiates IPsec tunnels between the HNB and the core network, forwarding traffic to the HNB-GW.
LINKS:
Small Cells content on The Mobile Network.
Small Cell Forum Release Programme.
