Coiler says its repeater competes with femtocell

Coiler Corporation, Taiwan based telecom equipment manufacturer, is positioning the latest version of its indoor repeater as a potential competitor to femtocell. The company introduced the new indoor repeater last week. Basically, both femtocell and Coiler type products are designed to solve similar problems. They are meant to solve coverage problem indoors, enabling uninterrupted mobile communication.

There is one difference though. While femtocell connects to the wireline broadband networks for data traffic and some voice offload, Coiler product transports all data via cellular networks. However Coiler is right in pointing out that the primary function of femtocell in the present market context is precisely the coverage issue – an issue Coiler claims to address better.
You could interpret the lack of broadband connectivity as a strength also. Coiler product doesn’t rely on internet connection. There are no IP interfaces to worry about, and the service provider doesn’t have to negotiate arrangements with broadband networks. The latter is a regulatory issue which has not surfaced yet. But there are hardly any commercial femtocell offerings out in the market.

Coiler also points out that its repeater is easy-to-install, even for non-technical people. In addition to that Femtocells are a bit expensive.

Coiler’s new indoor repeater has not been commercially deployed but the company is running trials “in four continents”. It’s other repeater solutions have been deployed in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe. In Europe alone Coiler is present in 20+ countries.

Coiler is a Taiwan based company and has been providing indoor coverage solutions for 17 years.