ASIA Japan : Ubiquisys and the SoftBank Group, the Japanese mobile operator, today have announced that they are cooperating in a 3G femtocell technology demonstration for the Japanese market.

The Ubiquisys ZoneGate femtocell is a plug-and-play 3G access point that can use a mobile subscriber’s broadband connection to transport voice and data calls to an operator’s core network using either standards-based interfaces, IMS/SIP or RAN Gateway (UMA based). ZoneGate is fully self-provisioning and requires no changes to the mobile handset. It can enable an operator to offer very attractive home zone tariffs to consumers due to its low cost of purchase and operation. Furthermore the femtocell significantly increases network capacity allowing faster data transfers for multimedia and services both in the home and on the macro network.

“The Ubiquisys ZoneGate is currently in trials with a number of leading European operators who see the femtocell as an ideal solution for delivering consumers better in-building coverage, cheaper calls and new innovative services,” said Chris Gilbert, CEO of Ubiquisys. “We expect these European trials to progress to full commercial deployments in the first half of 2008 and are delighted to be collaborating with SoftBank to demonstrate femtocell technology, and its benefits, to Japanese consumers.”

The Ubiquisys femtocell supports services such as IPTV, web radio, and podcasts from the internet or a media server in the home. It also contains a SIM card ensuring security and allowing easy billing for services such as home number ringing where the geographic number rings all mobiles in the home zone.

A recent study from ABI Research rated Ubiquisys the number one femtocell vendor of the top ten players in the sector, based on product innovation and implementation.