Femtocells today and tomorrow
A femtocell is not much to look at, resembling a DSL modem in size and shape. But it can do big things.
Today, femtocells, which essentially act as mini cell phone towers, are being used as signal boosters for a home or small business. They use W-CDMA 3G technology to connect up to four cellphones then route calls, via a cable or DSL broadband connection, to your mobile providers regular cellular network.
It’s a great solution for anybody in any area with poor cellphone reception. For Vodafone's UK rollout - which happened on July 1 (a local deployment is pending), voice and txt is as far as it goes, with its "Access Gateway" femtocell being marketed as a "signal booster". Alcatel Lucent says the carrier wanted to take a cautious approach with its initial deployment.
But there's nothing to stop data being thrown into the mix as well.
And once political, commercial and industry issues are worked through, all the technology is already in place for femtocells to do a lot more, says Alcatel Lucent senior product marketing manager David Swift, including:
Sharing a single phone number between a landline and multiple mobiles, by dint of VoIP. If a femtocell senses your mobile is inside your home zone, it’ll make an incoming call ring on all your devices; you chose whether to answer it on your cellphone or landline. Given that Vodafone already has a Commerce Commission-engineered deal with Telecom for unlimited national calls for $20 when a mobile is within its designated home zone - and Vodafone has shown NBR experimental VoIP software that can juggle one call between a mobile - there's earthquake potential here.
Media sharing: Using wi-fi, a femtocell could beam photos or videos directly from your cellphone to your TV
Presence: a femtocell can track when your mobile is in your home or business, or not. So, for example, it could alert you when your kids arrive home, or leave.
Ad-funded services. If a femtocell knows its Friday, and it knows that you’re in the house, it could deliver a context-sensitive advertisement, such as a pizza delivery promotion. Punters could be offered discounts on their mobile service, Google style, if they’re willing to accept ads. (In fact, Google itself is already mulling whether it should put Android on a some kind of home communications hub).
A smart home hub: future femtocells could turn off lights and heating once they detect all cellphones - that is people - have left the premises. Similarly, if you're away, you can turn on appliances remotely, using your mobile.
Mr Swift - a Brit - is part of an Alcatel Lucent team that will demo femtocell technology for Vodafone and Telecom today. Vodafone has already told NBR it will roll-out the technology in New Zealand, although there's no set time frame. Watch for a softly, softly roll-out. Put as things progress, there's seismic potential.
More on femtocells
Will a femtocell zap my brain?
Telecom joins Vodafone in femtocell trial
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Comments and questions5
I like the idea of these cells. I have very poor reception in Devonport for instance and have no objections to putting in another device; Radiation isn't my concern.
However the way I see it is that by entering a contract between the telco and myself I pay the telco for service which includes having reception.
So if these femtocells cost a lot of money (to me, the consumer) to buy then I'd feel ripped off as I am effectively buying a poor service of Vodafone and instead of them spending money to build a more solid network, I end up paying for a way of rerouting my phone activities.
Kind of feels like I am paying double and the telco gets away with simply not building better network coverage/reception.
They don't gaurantee 100% coverage everywhere - they do what they can. Here is an oportunity for you to get better coverage if you think the value is there for the extra money.
how could they? Instead they provide coverage to the street. If your concrete and glass bunker can't get signal, you can either: walk out to the kerb OR boos the signal using a femtocell.
not rocket science.
the Voda UK tends to use 2100Mhz for 3G which has abysmal building penetration, and this is made worse by the fact that most UK homes are masonry so dead spots abound.... Funnily enough voda's NZ 3G is so utterly garbage that femtos are their likely solution
Just to clarify Paul, I can accept an average coverage of networks but here I am sitting roughly 60 foot away from the street in what I'd describe as wooden shed with next to no shielding materials; Hardly a concrete and glass bunker. I am surrounded by low-to-ground vegetation and other small houses and I get 9 out of 100 on my reception, frequently no service at all.
I grew up in Germany where we would live in areas that had apartment building blocks of 7 stories on average build with roughly 3 foot thick solid concrete/stone and I got perfect ~70-80 / 100 reception in there.
Those houses were a similar distance from the city center than Devonport is to the Auckland CBD.
It is not that I expect 100/100 reception but this close to the CBD not getting anything higher than 10-20/100 on a good day is just pathetic and as other countries have proven are easily beatable by just deploying things properly.
In short: I am used to better (both were Vodafone Networks) and people accept average performance whilst paying top-dollar for it are not helping in pushing further network development by any of the telcos.
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