In an effort to enhance its coverage within indoors, PSU MTNL is banking on femtocell technology as it floated a tender for deployment of the technology on its 3G network in Delhi and MTNL.

The tender is a two-staged process involving a pilot project which will act as trail of the solution and then the actual deployment of the solution on terms and conditions to be decided later on.

Under the first stage, vendors will have to deploy their respective femtocell solutions numbering atleast 20 in the area allotted by MTNL. The vendor will have to bear the cost of such deployments.

Only those vendors whose solution is found suitable will be considered for stage 2. The business model for deployment of solutions during this process will be decided later on by MTNL in consultation with the vendors.

The vendor will have to provide design & dimensioning, supply of necessary hardware / software, installation, integration with MTNL network elements, testing & measuring equipment. MTNL will provide the space, power, air condition and back haul for the trial period only.

Femtocells are small cellular base stations using broadband connections for backhaul, intended to extend coverage and offload the mobile macro network in home and small office environments.