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

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.