Monday, February 11, 2008

Sonus rolls out femtocell tech at Mobile World Congress in Spain

At this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Sonus Networks Inc. has launched its first wireless product, aimed at helping service providers integrate femtocells into their Internet protocol (IP) networks. Dubbed the mobileEdge Wireless Access Node, the device acts as a femtocell gateway, enabling operators to connect 260,000 subscribers to a single node.

According to Sonus CTO Vikram Saksena, the device is a direct result of the company's acquisition of Zynetix Ltd. last spring. Westford-based Sonus paid $13 million for the U.K.-based company, and has used the firm's GSM software platform as a basis for the mobileEdge product.

Because large-scale deployments of femtocells -- essentially miniature, wireless base stations for home use -- have yet to surface, the immediate customer base for Sonus' product is small. According to Saksena, Sonus has lined up a number of beta tests of the equipment for this summer.

"We've traditionally been a wireline company," said Saksena. "But this is an entry point for Sonus into the wireless (infrastructure) space."

According to Arizona research firm In-Stat, worldwide femtocell installations are expected to grow to 40 million by 2011 and could surpass 100 million end users over the next five years. Such a growth path represents a market opportunity of more than $4 billion, according to the report.

In 2006, publicly traded Sonus reported $279 million in revenue, with a profit of $102 million.