AT&T is on track for a national femtocell launch by the end of this year, according to Gordon Mansfield, executive director with the company, speaking at the Femtocell World Summit in London yesterday. As a first step, AT&T is expanding its trials, which involve some 200 users, to coverage of key cities, after which, "We're on track for a full national launch by the end of 2009," he was quoted saying by Unstrung. This will be the first UMTS femto launch in the US.

Mansfield told Unstrung that AT&T will launch with a standalone 3G femtocell, (as opposed to a femtocell that's integrated into a residential gateway), but in the longer term, AT&T has its eye on integrated femtocells. Mansfield said, "Certainly we're looking at integrated femtocells. Some people think that integration is putting a femto into a residential gateway, and that's one aspect. We're looking at other things in the home [and asking]: 'How can I leverage all the elements in the home?' There's a lot of research and investigation in these areas and nothing definitive on what we're going to do."

As with Vodafone in the UK, Femto will be used as a standalone 3G cell, and not integrated in the home network.