LONDON, UK: Femtocells top the list of technologies used to deliver wireless indoor coverage and capacity and show the most growth between now and 2013, followed by microcells/picocells and distributed antenna systems (DAS), finds Infonetics Research in its latest report.

Sixty one per cent of the operators participating in Infonetics' survey already offer femtocell and FMC services to enterprises, 29 per cent plan to offer the services in 2012, and 10 per cent by 2013 (Infonetics interviewed only operators that currently offer femtocell and FMC services or plan to by 2013).

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Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave, mobile offload and mobile broadband devices at Infonetics Research, said: "Although there was a notable injection of impetus into the market in 2010 and 2011, the enterprise femtocell segment is still very young. At this early stage, most operators are proceeding cautiously, launching enterprise femtocell solutions to improve in-building network coverage (a challenge for mobile operators that can strain relations with high-value enterprise customers), mobile voice call quality, and mobile data capacity."

While operators use multiple solutions to provide wireless indoor coverage and capacity, femtocells are arguably the most cost effective, and improve capacity as well as coverage, which not all alternatives (such as DAS) do.

"Once the basic needs of capacity and coverage are improved, the opportunity to sell other, more sophisticated FMC services will follow," expects Richard.

The percentage of respondent operators deploying dual-mode 3G/WiFi femtocells jumps from five per cent in 2011 to 38 per cent in 2013.

Smaller competitive mobile operators are more advanced in the development of their enterprise femtocell service offerings, using the technology to target smaller businesses, the report adds.