BARCELONA--ZTE and Samsung today announced at the 3GSM World Congress a collaboration effort focusing on very specific technology, the femtocell, or home base station. The first partnership of the two Asian vendors, the agreement will focus on research and development of UMTS Node B technology that will suited for deployment in individual homes, allowing for new converged applications and higher network capacity on a house-by-house basis.

The Home Node B could work like a private home switch, automatically transferring a call session from the cellular network to a DSL or other broadband line using VoIP. "We believe it will play a critical role in indoor telecoms access and become increasingly important in the future evolution of 3G networks,” said ZTE vice president Ding Mingfeng said in a statement.

Femtocells are becoming an increasing area of interest in the wireless industry. Two other companies, Tatara Systems and 3Way Networks, announced their own partnership at 3GSM to develop their own femtocell line.

Sticking with the "small" theme, ZTE also unveiled a remote radio unit at 3GSM that it claimed was the world’s smallest base station. The UMTS base station is 17 liters in volume in 19 kilos in weight.