Femtocells [18:07]

Femtocells are just starting to be deployed in a broad range of applications with major network operators announcing rollouts in the USA, Europe and Asia.  They are basically small cellular base stations that people can put in their homes or businesses. They connect using a broadband connection (DSL, Cable, Fiber, etc) in the home or business. ABI Research forecasts that the total femtocell market in 2010 will reach 2.3 million units, and will exceed 45 million within five years. In this podcast we take a look at this emerging communications technology.Here's some of the questions we discuss and answer: What are femtocells? How many phones can they support? Are products currently available? Let’s pick one and dig a little deeper on the device features. How about AT&T since it is the newest offering. So, you need to have a broadband connection on the site in place? Why is there a GPS radio in a Femtocell device? What about Femtocell Quality of Service or QoS? Are the Sprint and Verizon products 3G like AT&T’s? What about pricing? Is there a monthly fee? So, we had talked about the problem Mark was having with lack of cellular signal in his home and office. Would one of these in his home and another in his business solve his problem?