Business Model for Femtocells: Franchising for Energy Saving

Purpose—The purpose of the paper is to analyze how business models are employed in mobile communications, in order to tune them to the Femtocell domain, in addition to studying other goals that can be achieved by looking at the business models in an alternative way.Design/methodology/approach—By analyzing the technologies directly linked to a business model, it would be possible to produce a taxonomy of their usage. An analysis of the value chain is used to understand how to enhance current approaches to achieve new goals.Findings—The article covers the perspective that mobile networks evolution and femtocell implementation in the mobile market can bring innovative services to the final user, by leveraging on alternative usage of business models.Research limitations/implications—The acceptance of the usage of particular business models by mobile operators can bring benefits to the final users in the form of innovative services. An example of these services is the implementation of techniques to save energy on the terminal side.Practical implications—As soon as the targeted technologies become mature, it will be possible to provide novel services to the final user, while increasing the operational and business benefits of the mobile operators.Originality/Value—A novel view on the current application of the business model is developed, and new innovative goals are shown to be achievable by novel approaches, or by traditional approaches applied in an innovative way. In particular, we show a case study where a novel service called C2POWER applies franchising (re-selling of services) of broadband access, to save energy on the mobile terminal side.