Femtocell market update for week of 16 November 2009

SFR to launch ‘Home 3G’ femtocell
Adverts for SFR’s Home 3G femtocell have appeared on the Internet.  It’s a standalone femtocell that will work with any ISP.  The price is ­­free with a 24-month contract, €5 per month for 12-month commitment or €199 to buy the box outright.  Like the Vodafone Access Gateway, Home 3G is [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 9 November 2009

NTT DoCoMo launches MyArea femtocell
Following through on an initial announcement last July, NTT DoCoMo has launched its MyArea HSUPA-capable femtocell in Japan.  According to DoCoMo, the femtocell “creates a private FOMA area in the home as a highly stable wireless environment for high-speed packet communication”.  Pricing is only $5 per month with no sign-up fee [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 2 November 2009

The magic of the MicroCell (and WiFi)
Telephony Online’s Kevin Fitchard believes that AT&T’s 3G MicroCell could become “another pillar in AT&T’s dual-network strategy” – WiFi and cellular, that is.  AT&T has become increasingly reliant on WiFi to offload mobile data traffic from its 3G network, with iPhones now connecting to WiFi automatically in AT&T hotspots, [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 26 October 2009

China Unicom launches “3G Inn” femtocell
According to an announcement in Chinese (translation here), China Unicom has launched a commercial 3G femtocell service targeted at “high end” consumers.  The so-called “3G Inn” service requires a 2 Mbps residential broadband connection, and is available for a monthly fee.  With a mere 140 million subscribers, China Unicom [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 19 October 2009

FCC’s net neutrality rules could help femtocells
On Thursday the FCC approved six rules for wired and wireless broadband Internet connections, but left the details of the rules open to public debate for the next 60 days.  One of the rules states that “subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 12 October 2009

Mobilkom Austria gives mixed messages on femtocells
Mobilkom has announced that it wants to deploy femtocells commercially in Austria next year (and possibly in other European mobile subsidiaries of parent company Telekom Austria).  However, the company’s top management provides little encouragement for vendors to respond enthusiastically to its RFP.  Mobilkom CTO Johann Pichler told Unstrung he [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 5 October 2009

AT&T expands 3G MicroCell availability
According to AT&T’s website, the 3G MicroCell is now available in Atlanta (29 stores) and Columbia (3 stores).  This follows last week’s launch in Raleigh (11 stores) and the original market of Charlotte NC (19 stores), making 62 stores in total.  One delighted customer commented, “Holy crap – AT&T 3g Microcell [...]

Femtocell market update for week of 28 September 2009

Engadget reviews AT&T’s 3G Microcell
AT&T expanded the rollout of its 3G Microcell to Raleigh in North Carolina this week, enabling Engadget to get their hands on one for testing.  “Without getting all long-winded on you,” they conclude, “the long and short of it is this: yeah, it really does work.”  Here are some of the [...]

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 – [...]