Femtocells Do Have Limitations

Some people in the mobile market are touting femtocell offerings like Sprint’s Airave or T-Mobile’s @home as the newest technology that will revolutionize the mobile market, allowing people to drop their land lines and solely use mobile devices moving forward. While they do offer some advantages, femtocells have far from proven themselves and have some significant issues for users to consider:

• Femtocells are effective only in the home or building where they are installed, and they lock users into a monthly broadband subscription fee. They are not able to boost cellular coverage in a mobile environment.
• Signal improvement is generally limited to a set number of phones previously programmed into the femtocell during set-up.
• Femtocells, like the Airave and @home, are carrier specific and won’t boost signals for multiple individuals with differing carrier subscriptions.
• Perhaps most notably, femtocells require a high-speed Internet connection, something currently unavailable in many areas of the U.S.

Unlike femtocells, cellular amplifiers are not tied to a broadband connection. This eliminates additional monthly fees and provides help to those without access to broadband service. Amplifiers from Wilson Electronics boost all incoming and outgoing cellular signals within their frequency range, greatly reducing dead zones and dropped calls. It is important to note that Wilson cellular signal amplifiers in particular are type-accepted by the FCC and are available in a wide variety of wireless and direct-connection models.

The benefits of an enhanced cellular signal amplifier have encouraged many consumers to look into any and all technology that promises extended and enhanced signal reach. When evaluating technology, especially femotcells, pay attention to the details and limitations it may have. If looking for a mobile, accessible cell signal booster, you might want to consider a cellular signal amplifier instead.

Contributor - Walt Brooks, Wilson Electronics

1 comments

FemtoGuy // October 09, 2008

Walt, Remember Femtocells are designed for a specific set of use cases that benefit the operator and the user. You are trying to position repeaters as an alternative to Femtocells when the two have little in common and can be more complementary than competitive. They address different use cases.
1. Femtocells are marketed to users who ALREADY have a broadband connection in their home. The business model works only because the broadband connection can be used as backhaul to the operators'core network. Femtos are not a loss leader to try and get users to sign up for a broadband connection.
2. The purpose of the Femtocell is, among other things, to improve service coverage and handset battery use/life for a specific household (or a small enterprise)in more densely populated areas where the operator investments can result in some economic ROI benefit. In this targeted user case, an average household of 4-6 simultaneous users is easily accommodated by the Femtocell. The intent is not to let your neighbors take advantage of your Femtocell pricing and packaging bundles that might save you money. They can get their own, or you CAN choose to authorized them or other users outside your home to have access by programming their numbers or EINs to an authentication scheme.
3. One of the value propositions for the operator and the user is that homogenizing all users in a particular household on one operator plan will result in bundling of services that achieve an economy of scale for the operator, who in turn can reduce prices for services in the household.