NEC Corp. has chosen Aricent Inc. to be its service partner as it rolls out 3G femtocells to mobile operators in India. Femtocell solutions are expected to be significant in India as enterprises use femtocells to provide broadband coverage in urban areas, while femtocells can be used in rural areas to augment in-building coverage for better voice communications.
NEC has nine contracts with operators for femtocell system deployments, totaling about half-a-million femtocell devices. NEC also has 24 femtocell trials in progress or already completed. For the India agreement, Aricent will provide end-to-end services including installation, integration, interoperability testing and support services. India’s 2G spectrum is congested, said Harkirit Singh, AVP Business Development, at Aricent. Deploying 3G services only makes sense for wireless operators if they can add users and lower costs. Thus, femtocells deployed in conjunction with the macrocellular network are attractive to operators, Singh said.
After years of delays, Indian mobile operators won 3G spectrum at auction in 2010 and are now in the process of building out their networks.
Aricent is a $600 million privately held company owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Sequoia Capital, The Family Office, and The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, said Shrikant Latkar – AVP Global Products and Solutions Marketing at Aricent. The company serves telecom equipment manufacturers, device manufacturers and telecom operators with a suite of design to deployment services, using its own intellectual property, Latkar noted. The company is well knowns for its frog design expertise.