Femtocell market update for week of 21 September 2009

The big story this week was AT&T’s 3G Microcell launch (covered here).  Elsewhere there wasn’t a huge amount of news in the world of femtocells – possibly because everyone was in Lisbon attending the Femto Forum plenary.  A couple of snippets…
Unstrung’s Michelle Donegan reported that her Vodafone Access Gateway is working.  She had [...]

AT&T launches 3G femtocell in Charlotte N.C.

AT&T tried to start selling its new 3G femtocell quietly via its retail stores in one city this week, releasing details about the device on a new 3G Microcell website.  But despite the low-key launch there was an immediate hailstorm of coverage in the blogosphere / twitterverse and in the mainstream telecoms press.  AT&T’s 3G [...]

STOP PRESS: AT&T 3G Microcell site goes live

The AT&T 3G Microcell website is now live.
Engadget reports pricing details here:

“AT&T’s going to charge $19.99 a month for unlimited use unless you’ve got internet or landline (ironic) service with them, in which case you’ll pay $9.99. If you’ve got both internet and landline accounts, it’s free.”

Engadget also likes the [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 14 September 2009

A ‘growing divide’ on 4G femtocells?
Fierce Wireless reports “a growing divide between those who believe femtocells and picocells are necessary in 4G coverage and those that don’t”.
In the Pro camp we find Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow, who used his talk at this week’s 4G World conference to urge network equipment vendors to focus on picocells, [...]

FON and femtocells

Sounds attractive, doesn’t it?  Femto + FON certainly seems like a hot idea, and the journalists have been all over the recent announcement from Ubiquisys and FON (both of which are backed by Google).
But unfortunately the Femto FON business model doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.  The analysis is a bit involved, so please bear with [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 7 September 2009

Telstra CTO wants femtocell apps
Despite having probably the best mobile network in the world (HSPA+ at 850 MHz with “spectacular” indoor coverage), Telstra CTO Hugh Bradlow is interested in femtocells.  He doesn’t want to use them for coverage, which he feels “sends the message that the operator has not built out its network properly”, but [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 31 August 2009

Vodafone publishes indoor 3G coverage maps
Vodafone has published new 3G coverage maps for the UK, for the first time showing both indoor and outdoor coverage.  From a glance at the maps it’s obvious that indoor coverage is very poor in many areas.  (In practice the situation may be even worse than the maps show – [...]