Femto Forum teams up with WiMAX Forum on access point specifications

The collaboration will address topics such as end-to-end QoS, provisioning, network entry and authentication, power optimization, and mobility management. The specifications will also support for emergency services, lawful intercept, and location-based services.

Growing demand for broadband wireless access inside homes and offices and the need for mobility and roaming across wide area networks have led WiMAX stakeholders to identify femtocell solutions as a means of increasing the aggregate cell throughput per unit area.

"Femtocells will provide a powerful new tool for WiMAX operators. By significantly increasing the number of cells in a wireless network using femtocells, operators can deliver a dramatically better service than using macro networks alone," said Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum.

"This partnership will not only enable vendor interoperability and increased economies of scale thereby driving competition- it will also help to support far-reaching new femtocell applications," he said.