Recently, a news article i came across somewhere caught my attention, and boy oh boy, it sure looks exciting. Imagine having your own network tower with you so that you wont have to search for network coverage. Ever heard of femtocell? I bet you didn't!
A femtocell is the world's worst name for a very exciting technology. It's a box (about the size of a router) that you connect to your broadband router; it essentially gives you your very own cell phone tower, right in your home.
Who wants a cell phone tower at home? Anyone who's ever had to stand immobile to keep their connection, or hang their head out the window to get another bar on their phone, or--heaven forbid--to walk up a hill.
Femtocell-outfitted homes will have crystal-clear phone coverage. And just imagine driving up to your house and having your phone know that it's time to switch over to your femtocell to keep up your coverage without missing a beat. Heck, you can even make a call from the basement.
Who wants a cell phone tower at home? Anyone who's ever had to stand immobile to keep their connection, or hang their head out the window to get another bar on their phone, or--heaven forbid--to walk up a hill.
Femtocell-outfitted homes will have crystal-clear phone coverage. And just imagine driving up to your house and having your phone know that it's time to switch over to your femtocell to keep up your coverage without missing a beat. Heck, you can even make a call from the basement.
The talk is that femtocells will be low cost, low power, and compact. They work on the same frequency as a cell site and share some similar technology. Instead of searching for a cell tower to connect to, the femtocell base station picks up the mobile phone signal and sends it out via the Internet via your broadband connection. Initially, femtocells will predominantly be used to get clear reception, but ultimately they could also be used for accessing data and Internet connectivity (similar to how EV-DO is used by the cellular carriers today). Down the road, this could mean some competition for 802.11 Wi-Fi as the home wireless standard.
There should be a number of femtocell announcements at CES and products should begin to appear on the market by late 2008. Now, about that word? According to a recent BusinessWeek article, "femto" means "one-quadrillionth the size of a given unit." What can we deduce from the name? Cell phone towers are gargantuan, and engineers, not marketers, named this breakthrough technology.
Thanks to Reuters for the image. I really hope this wonderful technology is made available in countries, esp India where network coverage is deteriorating day by day!
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