Femtocells and Their Integration with IMS

Abstract

With the expanding usage of mobile handsets for different types of communications, traditional landline service is being discarded in increasing numbers. But, the main hurdle in the mobile handset evolution is that when a user is inside a building there is degradation in the reception of signals. Femtocells have emerged out as a key solution to this problem. Femtocells are low power, indoor base-stations similar to Wi-Fi access points. They connect users with cellular providers via customers’ broadband Internet links, not via telephony infrastructure, thereby eliminating indoor reception problems. Femtocells extend carriers’ wireless networks directly into the homes. With this extension comes the challenge of integrating millions of wireless base stations with the existing mobile infrastructure. There are many different ways of achieving this integration. Among those, IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) based integration method can act as a major option. The purpose of this paper is to identify the issues surrounding this new technology, highlight the major challenges in the deployment of femtocells, give some preliminary ideas to overcome them and to bring forward the major reasons which strengthen the IMS candidature.