Google sees big money in tiny cell sites

Search giant Google has joined investors pouring $25m into femtocell technology company Ubiquisys, endorsing the technology that aims to put tiny little 3G cell sites into every home. Last week, Vodafone's request for proposal (basically asking for a quote) for femtocell hardware became public, a significant indication that it' …

[Dillon Pyron]

Femtocells and ADSL

"This follows the recent announcement that Netgear would be incorporating femtocell technology into some of its ADSL routers."

I've got cable. AT&T advertises 2 Mb. I'm getting 6 Mb, and RR has promised 10 by the end of the year. Why should I go down?

[Ian Rogers]

End of POTS for the right competitor?

If a cable & mobile operator like, say, NTL/C&W/Virgin/nom-du-jour had some sense they could kill ordinary telephone and copper broadband...

Offer free mobile calls to the same network, or partners, over VOIP from your femtocell enabled cable broadband (as long as the customer takes the broadband package obviously).

Also launch a brand of USB and ethernet dongles for networking within the home's cell range.

With these ideas, and lots of money, I'd be rich... :-)

[Nick Leverton]

Femtocells

So an attocell is going to be room sized (10^1 metre)

a zeptocell is going to be desk sized (10^0 metre)

a yoctocell is going to be inside-of-a-machine sized (10^-1 metre)

What on earth will we do when we get down to chip-sized cells, overtaking the SI in their naming strategy ? It doesn't leave any room for cells that really are a femtometre in size.

Or do we think the technologists are just choosing sexy names without reference to their meanings ? That would never happen, surely ...

[Mike]

Promised, or delivered?

My cable company has promised various speeds in the course of my contract with them. Occasionally, I've been able to measure speeds in the same order of magnitude. YMMV. Not that I think the DSL folks are any more honest, and in any case, the bandwidth for the link from "inside the garden" to "the cloud" is almost certainly a miniscule fraction of that available to browse the "value added" crap in the garden itself.

Ever since my provider started pushing "Video on Demand", my bandwidth, and especially my latency, has gone in the toilet during "prime time". I suspect there's a connection, and the relevance to this story is, do you want your call to Aunt Ethel to break up and stutter because the season finale of Desparate Housewives is on? Or do you just want to pay extra for your provider's branded Mobile-VOIP service to be prioritzed. As in "Tip us healthily and we won't spit (as much) in your soup"

[Cliff]

Orange Broadband plus femtocell = massive 3G coverage?

As Orange are embedding themselves as hard as they can in the world of copper ADSL, perhaps their long game here is for their 'free' broadband to actually offer 3G cells to streets and smaller cells right across the country - then they'd certainly have the best coverage, and maybe make something back from the ludicrous price they paid for the 3G license in the first place!

[Anonymous Coward]

Less requirement for Mobile Masts around the country

This is an excellent Idea. We will have reduced requirement for Mobile Masts next to our homes, schools and businesses..

It will also reduce the signal strength from the mobile handsets.

[Nano nano]

Public service

@Dillon - what's to stop a cable modem firm buying in the chipset as well ?

Ref fewer mobile masts - I don't think Joe Public will be authorised to connect to Jane Householder's femto cell, just Jane and her agreed circle. But in urban areas it will reduce cell loading - wonder if they will still offer emergency calls to the public though - might have been useful after the London bombs.