16th June 2011, Cambridge: launched today, OysterCatcher is a new diagnostic solution which enables mobile operators to optimise radio performance in large scale deployments of ip.accessfemtocells.

OysterCatcher fine-tunes femtocell radio configurations, complementing the femtocell’s ability to adapt automatically to its local radio environment and to minimise interference with the surrounding macro network.

Developed by ip.access – the company whose Oyster 3G technology is at the heart of the world’s largest deployment of consumer femtocells with AT&T in the USA – OysterCatcher finds and diagnoses radio issues for individual femtocells in particularly challenging radio environments, where automated techniques alone are insufficient to deliver optimal performance. These ‘edge-case’ scenarios may be insignificant in smaller femtocell deployments, but they can no longer be ignored when hundreds of thousands of femtocells are deployed in the network.

The OysterCatcher solution consists of probe software in the femtocell Access Point (AP) and server-side diagnostic tools. The probe software intelligently captures and uploads just the relevant diagnostic data from individual APs to a server-side database, which provides analytical tools for radio experts to diagnose and fix performance issues.

As well as enabling field issues to be fixed rapidly, OysterCatcher also provides key data for enhancing the algorithms used by the AP to manage radio resources and optimise performance automatically, aiding the development of true Self Organising and adaptive networks of femtocells.

Announcing the development, ip.access CEO Simon Brown said: “It’s important to remember that femtocell network performance is constantly evolving. For example, upgrades to handset firmware or changes to the macro network can all affect femtocell performance, which means that the job of diagnosing and improving the performance of the femto layer in the network is a continuous one – it’s not simply a question of optimising once and leaving the network to run by itself.

“Real-world data from OysterCatcher improves our algorithms for managing radio resources and selecting parameters to optimise Key Performance Indicators, such as speech quality and call drop rate,” explained Brown. “These algorithms work much more effectively than those based only on theory or simulation.

“The earliest adopters of new technology tend to be pretty tolerant,” said Brown. “But we are now moving rapidly towards mass market adoption, and OysterCatcher can help operators ensure that consumers get the best possible service from their femtocells.”

OsyterCatcher has been shortlisted for the’ Femtocell network element design and technology innovation award’ at the 2011 Femto Forum Femtocell Industry Awards, which will be presented on 22 June.

About ip.access
Headquarters in Cambridge, UK, ip.access ltd (www.ipaccess.com) is a leading manufacturer of cost-effective picocell and femtocell infrastructure solutions for GSM, GPRS, EDGE and 3G. These solutions bring IP and cellular technologies together to drive down costs and increase coverage and capacity of mobile networks.

ABI Research ranks ip.access as the world’s number 1 picocell vendor; its nanoGSM® and nano3G™ picocell solutions provide 2G and 3G coverage and capacity for offices, shops and (using satellite backhaul) passenger aircraft, ships and remote rural areas. nanoGSM is the world’s most deployed picocell, with live installations in more than 50 networks around the world and growing.

ip.access is also the company behind the multi-award winning Oyster 3G™ femtocell technology, which dramatically improves the user experience for 3G services at home. Oyster 3G is the core femtocelltechnology in AT&T’s 3G MicroCell.
ip.access counts Scottish Equity Partners, Rothschild Gestion, Intel Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners, ADC, Cisco, Qualcomm and Motorola Ventures among its shareholders.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Press contacts:
Europe: Kevin Taylor
Robertson Taylor PR
Tel: +44 7850 858 291
skype: +44 203 239 5005
kevin.taylor[at]robertsontaylorpr[dot]com

US: Vivian Kelly
Interprose
Tel: +1 (703) 860 0577
Viviankelly[at]interprosepr[dot]com

Distributed on behalf of ip.access by NeonDrum news distribution service (http://www.neondrum.com)