In-Stat says femtocells will make up 61 percent of small cellular base station revenue by 2013.

The industry has seen plenty of predictions concerning femtocells over the past couple of years, but the hype hasn’t exactly been realized. Rather, carriers have been searching for a realistic use case for the tiny base stations. 

Once hailed as a cheap solution for carrier backhaul that would be completely subsidized and launched en masse, today’s femtocell reality has been scaled back to some degree. Carriers are seeing the devices more as patches for indoor coverage and customers living in dead zones. 

Allen Nogee, analyst for In-Stat, says the recession just might give femtocells the push they need. “In-Stat expects the smaller and cheaper cells to be more immune to the recession, compared with more expensive macro and micro base station shipments,” he said in a press release.

Over the past year, both Sprint and Verizon have rolled out subsidized femtocells.

The report went on to state that femtocells, picocells and microcells are expected to surpass 15 million units by 2013. Worldwide, annual femtocell semiconductor revenue will approach $400 million by 2013.