“Enter femtocells, little boxes which leech off home broadband connections to create bubbles of cell phone service. AT&T calls its a 3G MicroCell [US$150]. Verizon’s is a Network Extender [US$250]. Sprint’s is an Airave [US$100+$5-$25/mo.]. Whatever they’re called, they exist to make up for the carriers’ failure to provide comprehensive coverage,” Segan writes. “Femtocells also save the carriers oodles of money by shifting calls off of their own networks (which they pay for) onto your home Wi-Fi connection (which you’re paying for.) Every iPhone that AT&T can get onto a MicroCell is an iPhone which isn’t latching on to an AT&T tower. Instead, it’s making Comcast or another ISP take the hit.”
“Carriers should be giving these things away. They should be thrusting them into the hands of every new iPhone owner, begging them to kick their traffic over to their home ISP instead of crowding our already overloaded 3G spectrum,” Segan writes. “By installing one of these boxes, you are doing the carrier a favor.”
“So why are the carriers charging for them? Charging for the hardware is bad enough; Verizon’s $249 Network Extender fee pretty much guarantees that it’ll sell like limp, ice-cold hotcakes… [but] Sprint takes the customer insult to a new level by charging $5/month to use the extender at all. It’s almost like Sprint doesn’t want its customers to have a better signal… [Unlike AT&T’s MicroCell], Sprint’s and Verizon’s don’t offer 3G data service,” Segan writes. “I understand that the hardware costs money and there are support costs involved, but come on: providing coverage is the most basic job a carrier should be doing.”
Read more in the full article here.
Love the iPhone, hate AT&T;.
So, ATT stamps its feet when any company wants to build an app that leeches off its bandwidth, but them leeching off the broadband providers is okay? How long before the Comcasts of the world begin to complain and lock out traffic from these devices?
I want a portable xtender so I can Carry around with me along with a nice heavy duty battery pack.
I almost purchased a $500.00 model back when I got the original iPhone, but in the past two years range has increased and it isn’t as big of a deal. But, I know folks who with Verizon since they lived in an AT&T;no service bubble. this SHOULD be offered for free, or they should refund your money for selling something in a area that is supposedly covered, by AT&T;. They make thousands off of the contract, this would make customers happy and sell more phones.
Now if I could get an iPhone with ONLY a data plan, no voice, no texting…
That would make me happy.
“Femtocells also save the carriers oodles of money by shifting calls off of their own networks (which they pay for) onto your home Wi-Fi connection (which you’re paying for.) “
Wait wait wait wait waaaaaait a minute, here. How much do these things cost?
Verizon’s is $250?
And if I use it, Verizon makes more money?
What the F@#$ is wrong with this picture?!? Shouldn’t they be giving us the damned things for free?
I swear, cell companies are no better than the mafia! What a racket!
1 – Provide sh*tty coverage, saving money. More profit right off the bat!
2 – Make your poor customers PAY for femtocells! More profit!
3 – Shift your customers calls off your network! Even more profit!
——RM
I wonder how ISP’s feel about AT&T;leeching off their services to support their crappy network.
@Spark: The FCC is currently doing its best to ensure that cable/dsl providers won’t be able to lock out traffic from these devices, because doing so would be an illegal violation of the soon-to-be enacted Network Neutrality law. So don’t worry about that part.
You know the more I hear the more I’m glad I’m not in America, you guys get screwed every which way. I mean your coverage can be pish (although where I live in the UK is pretty ropey too), you’re inclusive minutes are used when you RECEIVE calls (WTF?), your monthly fees are ridiculously high, and now they want you to piggyback on your broadband because they are useless. Seriously you all need to fight back, or emigrate!
I can’t imagine this would be a huge drain for broadband providers… Realistically, you’d be using WiFi for most data, so this is really just for phone calls and SMS.
And yes, the carriers should be AT MOST asking subscribers to pay slightly above cost for these.
I just wanna say that this is exactly why the FCC needs to become involved with wireless data. Left on their own, all the wireless providers will screw the customer AND continue to provide crappy service. The Holy Mantra of Capitalist Competition has done absolutely nothing to stop this.
I gotta say that it is ironic, tho, that AT&T;- which we all love to hate – has taken the most affordable and has the least obnoxious policies with respect to this microcell issue.
I don’t think these things should be given away for free. The hardware, manufacturing, packaging, distribution and support of these devices costs AT&T;money, and the demand for them, if they were free, would probably bankrupt AT&T;. $150 is a little steep though, I’d like to see it at about $120. And it’s a great move on AT&T;’s part that there’s no monthly fee for using one. What Sprint is trying to get away with is unconscionable.
It gets better – After charging you for the hardware (Okay, the price isn’t bad compared to the Sprint & Verizon) ATT will charge you minutes to use your own network . . . unless you pay them another $20 a month.
As I’ve said before…. ATT and their ilk are NOT interested in providing phones or phone service. They are ONLY interested in providing profits.
You can bet the device costs no where near $150.00 to make, so even there profit is involved.
I’m with the writer…. give them away to folks with iPhones. I’d set one up in my office in a heartbeat.
It’s like paying a dollar at the movies for the privilege of buying and printing your tickets at a kiosk. Why should I pay a dollar for doing someone else’s job? They should be paying ME to do this, not the other way ’round.
I’d love to have a femtocell… but not for $150.00
I bought two. I had voice quality issues, dropped calls. Tried to make them work for three days and returned them to the store. Bummer. I was really looking forward to finally getting a signal in my house and using the $19.95 all you can eat at my office and ditching my land line. No such luck.
Something has to be done. The iPhone (and even me-too copycat devices) are obviously the future. Things are only going to get worse, folks.
A massive wireless national network is what’s needed — no different than the interstate highway system that put the U.S. ahead of the pack for decades.
Now much smaller countries are shooting ahead in terms of wireless and bandwidth. We’re only as good as our infrastructure.
Firstly-
Can ONE of the AT&T;haters who’ve just been ripping on them for two years admit that the Death Star is behaving much better than the other carriers on this?
Maybe they’re learning by their association with Apple: do well by your customers and they’ll do well by you. Yeah, they’re service has not always been up to the demand, but check out the demand! They’ve got a tiger by the tail, and as best I can see, they’ve been continually busting their humps to get up to speed with an unslakeable demand.
@MidWest:
Good point. I generally think that well regulated capitalism is the strongest engine to get most anything done, but sometimes a critical job is too big, or requires too much coordination, or doesn’t provide enough profit to be done by anyone but the centralized and focused will of the people through their government.
The Feds built the Interstate system and Rural Electrification. Maybe >donning asbestos suit< if we want better service we should stop whining that someone gives it to us even as we whine that they charge us too much already. We could build it ourselves, through our government.
Just say “no” to these clowns. Why would you want to use ATnT when you have broadband ? Use Skype, or Vonage. AtnT are thieves.
Yes, these devices should be given to iPhone buyers for free.
I believe Steve Jobs met with the founders of FON, which is a femtocell company in Spain, well over a year ago. The idea was that if you let someone connect thru your FON femtocell, you’d get credit, making the use of one of these boxes, essentially free.
Okay, I looked it up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/technology/25web.html?pagewanted=all
That’s the article in the NYTs from 2008 where Steve met with the founders of FON, back in the Fall of 2007.
For those who couldn’t register, he’s the relevant bit:
MR. VARSAVSKY has worked overtime trying to line up more high-profile partners for FON. To that end, he traveled to Cupertino, Calif., last fall to meet with Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple.
During that 90-minute meeting, Mr. Varsavsky says, the two men discussed why a partnership might make sense.
Apple has sold millions of its Wi-Fi routers to residential customers, and its community of Wi-Fi users who share router access would be an ideal platform for FON. For his part, Mr. Jobs had developed an interest in Wi-Fi sharing because of the expanding number of iPhone users who are often frustrated by locked Wi-Fi access points.
But, Mr. Varsavsky says, from the moment that he and Mr. Jobs met, their discussion devolved into an argument. (Mr. Jobs did not respond to requests to comment on the meeting.)
At the outset, Mr. Varsavsky recalled, Mr. Jobs asked sharply, “Who needs your community?” and “Why should British Telecom bother to do a deal with you, and why shouldn’t people just leave their routers open for sharing?”
Mr. Varsavsky says he responded, “Why should you bother to do a deal with AT&T;? Shouldn’t iPhones just be connected freely with any cellphone network?”
Mr. Varsavsky says he left the meeting with the uncomfortable feeling that Apple might end up as a competitor rather than as a partner. But it wasn’t only because of Mr. Jobs’s legendary stubbornness that the Apple meeting apparently went awry. Mr. Varsavsky’s own substantial ego also came into play — something he freely acknowledges when he talks about how he first got into business.
Femtocell czars, bitch!
The first time a read about there I thought they were going to pay me $150.00 not the other way around?
In Canada I use Rogers for both my Internet and iPhone, if they were smart they would build there things rite into the Internet Modem they rent me for my internet connection, this would blanket large sections of every city with 3G and then later 4G and there users would be paying for the Power to run them, WIN WIN.
I’m missing something here. When I’m at home, I have WiFi, and so does just about everyone I know with an iPhone. When I’m at home, I connect via WiFi, except for phone calls and SMS.
Why do I need a femto-cell at home? And pay $150 for the privilege? And how is this going to help AT&T;with its bandwidth? Or how is it going to help me?
If the femto-cell worked in my car or at a restaurant, sure I can appreciate that, but it’s never going to happen.
Oh the AT&T;commentary here is amusing. It doesn’t matter who the service provider is, they’re all the same. I hate whining.
IMHO AT&T;/ Apple made a huge blunder by not deploying UMA/GAN support, which nips this problem in the bud. I’ve seen it work great on T-mobile devices.
So, I can’t tether my MBP to my iPhone without coughing up an additional fee, but ATT can charge me to tether my cel phone to my ISP….
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.