Why Femtocell can not run on the unlicenced spectrum?

Question

I got to know that Femtocell runs on the licensed spectrum which I thought should be otherwise. Is there any technological or business reason which forces to Femtocell to run on licensed spectrum. Please share your thought.

Answer 1

it is not like femtocell cant run on licensed or unlicensed band.we can make these small cells on any of them.but for licensed again the operator has to buy the frequency.so instead of this LTE people eyeing on these unlicensed bands.but the wifi (already working on unlicensed bands) techies not accepting this offer , worrying about LTE might conquer this world as LTE is much advanced and can serve many people at a time unlike wifi, which is a danger signal for wifi.so wifi people asking the LTe to use the same technology like wifi(carrier sensing).

but nothing is decided as of now.,still discussions are going on..,so lets see.

Answer 2

FemtoCell is rather in a direct competition with Wifi AP which operates in unlicensed spectrum.
FemtoCell can however provide better QoS since it runs on licensed spectrum (less interference) and also technology like LTE offers robust QoS framework.
However now Qualcomm has started to promote the concept of U-LTE (Unlicensed LTE). This technology is likely to be commercial by 2016+ timeframe. With U-LTE being available in future we are likely to see FemtoCell in unlicensed band as well.