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Which Operators Need to Deploy Femtocells?

Which Mobile Operators Need to Deploy Femtocells?

(A) Incumbents: Strong, Data-centric carriers (seeking efficient offload)
             AND
(B) New Competition: Innovative players making a dent in existing wireline and wireless players

Incumbent candidates (category A) include (in order of data-centricity):

1. NTT DoCoMo 
2. China Mobile
3. KDDI
4. Verizon Wireless
5. AT&T Mobility
6. Sprint Nextel Launched 8/2008
7. China Unicom
8. Softbank Launched 11/2008
9. O2 UK
10. T-Mobile USA

“New Competition” operators are defined in each market (there’s not a top 10 list for this category), but you can recognize them within each market as they:

• Significantly lag the incumbent provider(s)  
  Benefit: Femto improves coverage)
• Innovate to succeed
• Only provide mobile services
  (since operator does not currently deliver wireline service, they can provide a Femto solution that includes wireline at marginal cost)  
  Benefit: Cost savings for Subscriber, greater service revenue for Operator 

Already there is an operator in this category (third to market, with the most advanced product deployment to date): StarHub, a cable-based (ISP) mobile competitor in Singapore. Another example would be SFR, who can leverage their broad, DSL customer base through Neuf Cegetel, of which SFR owns 40.5 % stake (as Unstrung opined in June 2008). 

Note: Femtocells will become mainstream and will be widely adopted. These are the operators that will lead the delivery of Femtocell solutions, due to their competitive needs.

Watch the actual operator trials and deployments here (I plan to keep this updated to allow us to track the progress of femtocell deployment and to test my hypothesis).