04/01/08 - NETGEAR Inc. (Nasdaq: NTGR )  announced a plan to achieve interoperability between NETGEAR's Femtocell Voice Gateway (DVG834GH) and the Tatara Convergence Server.

The combined solution will enable mobile operators to extend and improve cellular phone coverage for home and small office users, as well as provide customers with affordable and easy access to a range of advanced home networking services via existing 3G handsets. Both products will be on display in Tatara's booth (#3300) at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas, April 1-3, 2008.

"We're very pleased to work with Tatara on this innovative and standards-based approach to femtocell convergence," said David James, NETGEAR's director of product management for service provider markets. "Our respective solutions promise to greatly benefit our service provider partners around the world, and in particular, the many operators that want to integrate femtocell traffic leveraging VoIP or IMS infrastructure. Tatara has been leading the industry in developing a SIP-based approach to femtocell network integration, responding to network operator demands for an open, low cost solution that is highly scalable and provides for multi-vendor interoperability."

Seven products in a single box, the NETGEAR Femtocell Voice Gateway includes a comprehensive residential gateway with integrated ADSL2+ modem, router, 10/100 wired LAN switch, 802.11g wireless access point, Voice over-IP (VoIP), SPI double firewall, and private mobile network with 3G femtocell technology. The gateway enables consumers to share their broadband Internet connection with their mobile devices and networked computers, both wired and wirelessly.

"Service providers around the world know and respect the NETGEAR brand for providing industry-leading networking solutions featuring SIP-based interfaces," stated E.Y. Snowden, President and CEO for Tatara. "Working closely with NETGEAR is a reflection of our progressive commitment to develop and promote an open SIP-based standard for the femtocell-to-network interface."

The Tatara Convergence Server (TCS) handles all the service interworking functions and call state processing necessary for controlling the flow of femtocell voice and messaging traffic over an IP packet core, while delivering service parity with the existing GSM/UMTS macro network. The key benefit to mobile operators is a lower cost convergence solution, leveraging commodity infrastructure for transport and control, but without the need to reconfigure or upgrade equipment in their circuit-based mobile core. The TCS can be deployed in a VoIP or IMS environment, and supports standard SIP or ISC interfaces into the packet core, as well as a GSM MAP interface into the circuit-based core, and supports all critical femtocell convergence requirements, including supplementary services, emergency services, and femto-macro handoff.

The two companies will showcase their interoperable femtocell solution at the upcoming CTIA Wireless trade show, the premier global event representing the $500 billion global wireless industry. As the largest wireless show in the world, CTIA brings together all industries affected by wireless technology.

Keywords: service provider partners, cellular phone coverage, adsl2 modem, wireless access point, ctia wireless, broadband internet connection, service provider markets, 3g handsets, voice over ip voip, ntgr, voice gateway, modem router, combined solution, 3G