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Friday, 22 February 2008

Do we really need Femtocells?

This article in Telecom Magazine got me thinking. Do we really need more wireless equipment in our house that will increase the electronic smog or would we rather change the service provider?

Forty-three percent of respondents surveyed by 2Wire said they would rather switch cellular carriers to get better in-home coverage, lending credence to the growing movement for either femtocells or fixed-mobile convergence with dual-mode devices as a way to improve home reception. The survey, conducted by Quality Resource Associates, of San Jose, California, questioned over 600 mobile and broadband users to gauge their thoughts on fixed-mobile convergence.

“When 43 percent of people who respond say that they would consider switching to a new cell phone service provider that could promise perfect in-home coverage, that’s a very strong statement,” Brunato said.

Other findings in the report include …

  • ­35 percent of respondents would cancel their fixed line phone service and only use the cell phone if home coverage was as good as fixed line.
  • ­65 percent are interested in switching to a provider with in-home cellular Web browsing and cellular e-mail at speeds as fast as high-speed Internet
  • ­40 percent would consider purchasing a Wi-Fi enabled cell phone if they could make free phone calls with it inside their home
  • ­37 percent would accept an additional piece of equipment if it delivered voice quality as good as the fixed line service
Read the complete article here.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous24 February 2008 at 01:59

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Bodyweapon22 May 2008 at 07:34

    just a question to the webmaster

    if I use a femtocell, why i need to pay to use it?

    Afterall I am improving the network provider (UTRAN) capability out of my ADSL (or cable modem) link (which I already paid like 30 bucks a month)

    The coverage improvement thing, I think is the job of the service provider. If I paid 50 bucks a month but got poor coverage@home. The first thing I do is to switch provider rather getting a femtocell station.

    What do you think?

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  3. Zahid Ghadialy22 May 2008 at 19:23

    I attended some femtocell related presentations today and it is the right time for me to answe this.

    The simple answer to your questions is that you will be tempted into buying a femtocell.

    For example, If your operator qives you unlimited calls from your mobile when you are camped on your femtocell, would you be tempted? At present when you try accessing data from your mobile it may be slow and sometimes you may not connect if there is congection. You femtocell will allow you high speed connection for data services and at the same time this data will not count in your data allowance. There are many more things they are working on right now.

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  4. Bodyweapon22 May 2008 at 20:13

    Hi Zahid,

    Thanks for your answer!

    I totally agree with your answer, if my service provider gives me like unlimited minutes & data if access through femto. (I definitely jump on it)

    If that works, I can reduce my monthly plan and still won't blow up my minutes :)

    I recall at US, Sprint has a femto product called Airave. They provide unlimited calling (if initiated from the Airave, cos' it doesn't do handover, not even hard handover - however it does transfer call from wireless network to airave), and requires to pay a certain monthly fee (I think, can't find the info yet).
    (more info @ http://www.sprintenterprise.com/airave/faq.html)

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