Method and System for Improving Performance of a Femtocell Self Organizing Network

1 . A method for improving performance of a femtocell self organizing network, comprising:

receiving wireless fidelity (WiFi) footprints from a first femtocell and a second femtocell;

determining whether there is a common WiFi footprint between the WiFi footprints of the first femtocell and the second femtocell; and

allocating one or more network parameters to the first femtocell or the second femtocell based at least on the determining.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the receiving, the determining and the allocating are performed by a femtocell gateway.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the femtocell gateway is a Home NodeB Management System (HMS).

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the femtocell gateway is located in a core network.

5 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the femtocell gateway is co-located with other entities in a single server.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining comprises:

retrieving WiFi parameters from the WiFi footprints; and

analyzing the retrieved WiFi parameters to identify parameters that are common to the WiFi footprints.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the retrieving comprises retrieving one or more WiFi parameters from a list comprising a network id, an encryption type, a radio frequency (RF) band and a RF carrier.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the network parameters are from a list comprising a color code, a scrambler code, a ZC sequence and a cell_id.

9 . A method for improving performance of a femtocell self organizing network, comprising:

identifying a wireless fidelity (WiFi) footprint of a femtocell, wherein the WiFi footprint of the femtocell comprises one or more WiFi networks;

sending the identified WiFi footprint to a femtocell gateway; and

receiving one or more network parameters from the femtocell gateway.

10 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

assigning the received network parameters to the femtocell.

11 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the network parameters received from the femtocell gateway are from a list comprising a color code, a scrambler code, a ZC sequence and a cell_id.

12 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the identifying comprises sniffing a WiFi environment of a femtocell to detect the one or more WiFi networks.

13 . A femtocell gateway device for improving performance of a femtocell self organizing network, comprising:

one or more circuits configured to:

receive wireless fidelity (WiFi) footprints from a first femtocell and a second femtocell;

determine whether there is a common WiFi footprint between the footprints of the first femtocell and the second femtocell; and

allocate one or more network parameters to the first femtocell or the second femtocell based at least on whether there is a common WiFi footprint.

14 . The device of claim 13 , wherein the femtocell gateway is a Home NodeB Management System (HMS) as defined in 3GPP specification.

15 . The device of claim 13 , wherein the femtocell gateway is located in a core network.

16 . The device of claim 13 , wherein the femtocell gateway is co-located with other entities in a single server.

17 . The device of claim 13 , the one or more circuits further configured to:

send a message to femtocells to initiate a sniff and send WiFi footprint data.

18 . The device of claim 13 , the one or more circuits further configured to:

retrieve WiFi parameters of the received footprints; and

analyze the retrieved WiFi parameters to identify parameters that are common to the WiFi footprints.

19 . The device of claim 13 , wherein the femtocell gateway retrieves one or more WiFi parameters from a list comprising a network id, an encryption type, a radio frequency (RF) band and a RF carrier.

20 . The device of claim 13 , wherein the network parameters are from a list comprising a color code, a scrambler code, a ZC sequence and a cell_id.