Femtocells and You

If you're a casual gadget addict, it's possible you've never heard of femtocells and have never heard of any other way for a cell phone to use an Internet connection for calls other than the phone, itself, having the ability to connect to a wifi router. A good portion of the mobile phone industry is comfortable with the idea that cell phones are moving in the direction of WiFi compatibility. However, there is also a movement that supports Femtocells.

Have you ever found your non-wifi-enabled cell phone without any reception at all while at home or the office? Perhaps you work deep in a big cube farm or maybe your boss makes you do your job from inside a Faraday Cage. Or you could have your home office in a particular corner of the world that doesn't have a nearby cell tower with your particular carrier's signal carried on it. Femtocells can fill in that gap.

The idea is simple. You plug a femtocell into your wall socket and then into your Internet connection. Then, it goes on the 'net and connects with your wireless carrier. Voila--any cell phone can then make VoIP calls and the user doesn't have to worry about being short on bars or about not having a WiFi-enabled mobile. In a way, it functions almost like a cell phone signal extender.

What's the catch?

That's always a good question to ask, because there is usually at least one. In the case of femtocells, there is more than one catch. The obvious problem is that it requires you to have another box in your home or office. Like any real gadget addict needs another box in their home. Especially a box that just sits there next to your DSL or cable modem, which already has a WiFi router as a companion. Now imagine how cluttered your home would be if you also had a wireless audio or printer server. How about a few stand-alone networked hard drives? You'd need a whole new trophy shelf.

The more problematic issue is how carriers will convince customers to use their service if it requires them to spend the extra money to buy a femtocell. That's right--these things cost extra. EngadgetMobile.com reports that last September Sprint started charging $50 for their femtocells. Then, last month EngadgetMobile reported that AT&T would be charging $100 for theirs.

It's easy to see how this all seems excessive compared to just having cell phone manufacturers build WiFi into their new phones.