Femtocell versus WiFi - A survey and comparison of architecture and performance

Abstract

Femtocells use common cellular air access technologies, but claim to improve system capacity according to Shannon's law by reducing distance between transmitter and receiver and thus improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Femtocells, however, use the IP network as backhaul architecture instead of the conventional cellular network infrastructure. Thus, femtocell and WiFi infrastructure networks have a lot in common. This raises a curiosity whether femtocell technology would replace existing WiFi technology. This can be answered only by carefully analyzing the similarities and differences between the two technologies. This paper provides a technical comparison between femtocells and WiFi in terms of architecture, operation and standards.