Femtocells installed in corporate and enterprise premises: An operator's perspective

From an operator's perspective, femtocells are seen as an effective instrument to manage the increase of data traffic, and they are expected to be crucial in the future evolution of the LTE networks. Further to these evolutions, expected in the short-term future, current commercial implementations of femtocells have proven to be really important to manage the expectations of corporate and enterprise customers: the experience of Vodafone Italy shows that, in this market segment, femtocells are really able to differentiate an operator with respect to competitors. If compared to radio repeaters, the traditional solution used to provide coverage and capacity in the premises of corporate / enterprise customers, femtocells have had specific advantages, both for the operators and for the corporate customers, but also as regards potential interference issues, when the carrier is shared with the macro network, to be appropriately managed.