Comments on: Vodafone tries again with femtocell proposal

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:38:28 +0000

The problem Nick is that this would not be the case using the current Vodafone solution. A more industrial solution would be needed there.
The reson is twofold. Firstly you would need to install a femto for each network (so five in all, but only Vodafone currently do one) and secondly even if they did and you did there is a limit to how may mobiles the boxes will handle (the Vodafone one is 4 concurrent connections).
Thirdly (even though I said there were only 2!) you have to log into the femto and register each handset you want to use.

By: brendan

brendan — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:14:59 +0000

Femto cells are good at improving coverge indoors, an advantage in the US, but not in Europe. I presume that the selling point is cheaper calls at home, and all without changing handset?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:31:44 +0000

Femtos are really for calls, texts and mobile (phone) data only. And even on the phone you would switch to WiFi for large downloads.
There would be no point in connecting a 3G laptop dongle to a femto since the femto needs a 1Mb adsl connection to work. You would use the WiFi instead.
If you have coverage in your house then you don’t need one. If you are like me where there is a 2 bar Orange Edge signal outside but absolutely nothing inside it would be amazing to say the least.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:25:16 +0000

Seaamus, the reason is simple. WiFi would not be transparent. Femtos are.
Firstly the only decent WiFi solution available (other than software based VOIP) is UMA. First you need a UMA handset and second unlike normal smartphones (like the iPhone) UMA handsets keep their WiFi on all the time even when asleep. This hammers the battery. I know, I’ve used a Blackberry with UMA. Most smartphones turn off the WiFi when asleep to conserve power. Because of this you find yourself constantly turning the WiFi on and off when you go out and when you come back home. It really is a pain in the butt.

With a Femto all you do is register the handset with the femto cell and that’s it. When you go out you use the Macro cells, when you come home your phone switches seemlessly to the femto.
The best bit though is if like me you have 0-1 bars of signal indoors, with a femto installed your battery suddenly lasts 60-70% longer!!
It’s a no-brainer I’m afraid.

By: sammyb

sammyb — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:56:40 +0000

But what about having to whitelist the numbers you want to be able to use with the femtocell? No plans for a commercial version just yet, so no, this isn’t much use to your friend right now.

By: Aliasgar

Aliasgar — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:49:36 +0000

Femtocell is a solution that was developed not for the public places, as far as i understand the technology, the femtocell would be locked on to certain phones in the household and a static IP would be assigned to it. Reason being the people in the household can only access the femto and no one else outside. Regarding applications ‘n’ number of location based services can be pushed through it. Some wage Idea your daily newspaper would reach you on your phone thorugh the Femtocell in a digital format, anything happening exciting in the community you will be notified thorugh the femto network….the applications are endless…

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:42:17 +0000

It’s not about the WiFi – femtocell’s are particularly attractive to people with low and unreliable voice services on their mobiles as the femtocell solves that problem…

By: Zubair

Zubair — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:22:54 +0000

Real value of Femto will come with its deployment in public places as coverage solution. In private deployments it is an enahanced version of Wifi that allows you to make and receive calls from your mobile. Note that femto is also location aware allowing and raft of applications that can be built on it.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:36:28 +0000

Femtocells are not just ‘home base stations’…

I have a friend who runs a bar in the basement of an old stone building. The lack of phone service drives some customers away. A femtocell is the ideal solution for him since for his customers the service will be transparent – they could use their regular phones for voice or data and not have to worry about dropped calls or lack of service any more.

By: Basket

Basket — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:13:39 +0000

I agree with Seamus, it is not only smartphones Vodafone want to connect but also Mobile Broadband powered laptops and those devices have wifi for sure, then why another box. For Ayman comment on that not all have wifi, well, if you run adsl and no wifi then you most probably not have so much interest in femto anyway.