Vodafone Launches Home 3G Femtocell In The UK

Onikage

From http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/vodafone-launches-home-3g-femtocell-in-the-uk-1203

A breakthrough moment for signal-boosting indoor 3G femto technology - but will Vodafone encourage data on the system?

Vodafone has launched the first commercial 3G femtocell in Europe, designed to boost signals indoors and offload traffic from the mobile network

The Vodafone Access Gateway can be ordered from Vodafone shops or online from 1 July.

Looking like a home router, femtocells give 3G coverage indoors, and use home broadband to connect calls across the Internet to the mobile network. The Vodafone device, announced at the Femtocells World Summit in London, this is believed to be the first full commercial launch of a 3G femtocell in Europe - and possibly the world, depending how you define 3G.

The device is understood to be a femtocell built by Alcatel Lucent using silicon from femto specialist picoChip, and will be available on different price plans - from outright purchase at £160, to bundling with contracts around £15 per month.

"This is very much an early stage rollout, specifically aimed at coverage, and focussing on voice, not data" long-time femto watcher Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis. Femtos will first be deployed to offer better indoor coverage and keep customer loyalty, he said. This is similar to Sprint's femto deployed in the US, which supports CDMA2000, not universally defined as a 3G network. After that, operators will attempt to offload traffic from their networks, and and then deliver new applications on the devices.

"It's certainly the first of its kind in Europe, and I see Vodafone says it will work over every home broadband line," said Bubley. "But are all the broadband lines good enough? And it means they are at the mercy of ISP's usage policies."

The device will support up to four voice calls, and users will register the handsets they want to use it on the web. The announcement makes no mention of using dongles or data, noted Bubley: "It's focussed around voice, so it looks like they are trying to create a low impact service initially."

The Alcatel-Lucent device believed to be in Vodafone's offering is well capable of data traffic, supporting HSPA at more than 7Mbps, so the gateway should work well with laptops. It is possible that Vodafone is not marketing that heavily, to avoid complaints from fixed operators. BT has recently objected to carrying content for the BBC iPlayer without extra payment, and ISPs could object to supporting a rival mobile player in this way, said Bubley.

Vodafone did not address the issue of any agreements with ISPs in its presentation.

"The Vodafone Access Gateway will boost indoor mobile phone coverage for customers who today, find they need to move around the rooms in their home to get a consistent signal strength,” said Ian Shepherd, consumer director, Vodafone UK. “We are committed to delivering the best, most reliable network and this is another step towards maintaining a seamless service.”

"The most telling thing is that the announcement was made by a marketing head," said Paul Callahan, vice president of business development at femto maker Airvana. "You can have a huge disconnect between the technology dreamers and the marketing guys who have to sell the device. It seems Vodafone is going to run with this."

Tha announcement should address requests from the budding femto industry for operator backing. Yesterday, Keith Day of femto maker Ubiquisys said: "What the industry needs is an operator that does the full promotional package on a femtocell."

picoChip was unable to confirm its involvement but Rupert Baines, vice president of marketing was at the conference and said: "This is exciting news. It's a full national retail launch, and the first launch of an HSPA femto."

Great tech, unfortunate acronym.

watty

If 3G really provided good coverage and was really broadband there would be no market for this.

Why would you use it with laptops? It uses your OWN broadband and WiFi can do 54Mbps to 250Mbps.

Stupid article. It's not for data but so that your mobile phone works indoors and that you use the Mobile and not DECT or Skype, and not a service that redirects to Skype or landlaine if your mobile is off or out of coverage.

YOU pay for the connection via your Broadband account and then Vodafone charge you a second time for the call. They save on 3G capacity.

I for one will not be installing a Femtocell.

Onikage

Indeed, the marketing on this one leaves something to be desired. As a reward for getting slightly better phone reception, you get to pay for some of the operators infrastructure and carraige costs. If you have bad mobile reception and a fixed line at hand, why would you not just use the fixed line? Really stupid.

A wasted opportunity because the device is basically a mini 3g basestation. Give me a FON type setup where I can make a few cents on people using my bb and I'll think about it.

Dardania

I wonder is there a reduced cost per call when you use one of these things...would make sense considering you're providing network backhaul TO the mobile operator.

Watty, the reason you would want data on it is if you have a non wifi enabled blackberry for example.

watty

Indeed. But the article mentioned laptops.
Since it's simply a miniature 3G basestation, of course the Blackberry will work. But you'd be mad not to make sure you have WiFi for laptop and use WiFi Mode on WiFi featured phones as you get charged for 3G calls otherwise.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/24/femtocell_applications/
Spoiler

(For those not bothering to click, there are really none compelling other than improving 3G coverage)

Currently no operator has any plans to reduce the call cost. Even though it uses YOUR broadband to connect!

You are basically just getting better coverage, or coverage if you live in a black spot or have K-glass Double Glazing.

Dardania

I think from the sense of the article, they were saying that information from the the femtocell manufacturer indictes it can support laptops. What I figure is that the journalist that wrote the article is implying that laptops would be the only device that would make use of a pemtocells data functionality, whereas there are other devices that use data on wireless networks. Indeed, if it was voice only, it would be sold as a 2G pemtocell.

I agree though: using 3G is a poorly performing method of wireless broadband, and is particularly ridiculous in the case of a pemtocell house as you should just use the conventional broadband that must be available to support the pemtocell.

Regarding additional uses for pemtocells - a developing technology at the moment is cableless battery charging - some people may have seen the electric tootbrush that doesn't have any electric contacts yet still charges when put on a base station - turns out it charges by magnetic induction (also the same way RFID access control/cashless vending cards get their power) Maybe the pemtocell, if manufacturers sort out a standard between themselves, could be a charging base station?

Dardania

I wonder is there another reason they are saying it will be 3G only rather than 2G...3G operates at a higher frequency than 2G so maybe it's a signal range issue - they don't want the signal travelling too far outside your house?

watty

voice and data is 2G or 3G

3G is on 2100MHZ and does not ENTER buildings well. It also uses W-CDMA which changes in range badly dropping connections (Breathing). Hence need for a home or office personal base.

You can get GSM pico cells and Femto cells too. But they are not so often needed.

Voice only can also be 3G only.

Cable-less battery charging has been around as long as rechargeable batteries. It is a stupid waste. Environmentally unfriendly in wasted power and in generated interference and limited in speed/Power.

It's not hard to design a charging desk stand. Mobile radio and DECT phones have had them for over 20 years (yes DECT *IS* over 20 years old!).



The 3G Femto cells inherently do voice and/or data.

If your phone is GSM (2G) only, the Femto cell may not work if it is 3G only.

2G and 3G are different Technology on different bands. Both do voice and/or Data. 3G voice can be higher quality than GSM voice. While the up to speed of 3G can be higher for a single user, in real life on a mast with same amount of spectrum and EDGE based GSM (2G) system can actually carry more data. 3G is not very efficent when many users ( > 5) are connected.

Dardania

I think I've used one of those GSM/GPRS pico cells on a ryanair flight - but only to send a text...very simple use of clever technology...

my point about the 3G range is that as it is at a higher frequency than standard 900/1800 GSM, it would have an inherently reduced range than GSM, and would be less likely to be picked up by people walking past your building. This is probably good, as Vodafone probably dont want people roaming onto your cell, taking your bandwidth, and causing them increased cell change requests back at their HLR.

Do 3G phones use a different voice codec?

With the charging base station, I don't think I'd agree with you straight away about it being a stupid waste...just a matter of design. In a normal, wired charger setup, you have (on a simplistic, non product specific level)
an 230VAC/~14VAC trafo, followed by some sort of DC inverter, which through some circuitry outputs a stable enough 12V DC current for connection to the phone to charge.

For my charging station idea, What about splitting the circuit up:
One winding of the trafo is in the charging station, make it about the size of a 5cent coing. The other winding is in the rear case of the phone, about the size of a 2 euro coin. When the two line up, you've got a full trafo. Put the DC inverter circuitry in the phone, and voila a charger!
You could have say 4 of these charging "coins" on each charging station, that only activate when you either press a button,(naturally the particular charging coin would have a nice pulsating led indicating it wants attention) or you could use the intelligence of the phone>base station communication and the charging coins could only be active when it has a phone logged into it for voice calls.
Now, I can see that the plastic casing which would have to go over the base station, and on the back of the phone might result in a non-optimal dielectric, but I'm sure that advances in materials will result in thinner materials here...

The alternative of course is what we have now - chargers that get left plugged in (in most cases) all the time, wasting power running a voltmeter to detect something to charge, through a proprietary connection... It's a lot easier to standardise a voltage/frequency than a physical plug - look at how Nokia (the staple of keeping their plugs the same) changed their charging pin a few years ago... Certainly, in the similar field of RFID access control / cashless vending cards, many different makes of cards work on many different readers (although not between the luas and dublin bus, but i suspect that might be political!)

watty

Yes, 3G voice uses a different (adaptive) codec. GSM uses a fixed bitrate codec. So 3G voice calls can be better or worse quality than GSM. Usually better.

Your charger would get left in all the time and wastes power and creates interfernce.

The power of left in chargers is very small, one light is x10. Also easy to design a stand with a real switch to connect/disconnect mains.

Mobile phones are now standardising on a micro USB connection for charging.

long_b

I have "g" WiFi in my house that doesn't quite reach our shed from the house,
Would one of these have better range ?

watty

A)
It only goes up to 7.2Mbps. g is 54Mbps


You get charged 3G data to access Internet via it, even though it uses your broadband

c)
I'd run a cable (up to 100m, or 200m if you put a cheap switch in middle powered over the unused pairs)

How far is your House to shed?
Have you K glass Double Glazing?
Is the WiFi point at a window facing Shed?

The whole point of these is NOT to extend your Broadband using 3G, that's moronic. But to provide 3G Phone calls primarily, and secondarily 3G data for gadgets with no WiFi using YOUR broadband.

You get charged as if using a 3G mast.

If the femto cell had any useful outdoor coverage it would interfe with a real base station from point of view of users. Vodafone can only use their own 5MHz channels @ 2100MHz. They only have 3 of them. Each Femto cell uses an existing in use 5MHz licensed channel.

Really they should have built in GPS as the USA models do to stop you using them elsewhere. IP based geolocation is not as good or secure as Vodafone think.
1) You may have an IP not in UK. (Some Irish ISP customers have had UK IPs)
2) you can use a Proxy or VPN to make it seem femto cell in UK when it isn't. That will be breaking the local law.

long_b

Thanks for the reply watty.

watty wrote: »

A)
It only goes up to 7.2Mbps. g is 54Mbps

Knew that

You get charged 3G data to access Internet via it, even though it uses your broadband

Not an issue - 1GB for a tenner on Vodafone's OK

c)
I'd run a cable (up to 100m, or 200m if you put a cheap switch in middle powered over the unused pairs)

Will check that out - not great with cabling myself.

How far is your House to shed?

About 30m

Have you K glass Double Glazing?

Nope - just the old style single glazing.

Is the WiFi point at a window facing Shed?

Will try this, but at the moment it's central in the house

The whole point of these is NOT to extend your Broadband using 3G, that's moronic. But to provide 3G Phone calls primarily, and secondarily 3G data for gadgets with no WiFi using YOUR broadband.

You get charged as if using a 3G mast.

Just wanted to see if it could be a cheap way for me to get some sort of usable data signal in the shed. Obviously the cabling would be a better solution. While I'm at it should get the phone wiring redone in the house.

Thanks for the advice.

watty

£160 and ongoing usage charges? For me that "tenner a gigabyte" would be about 2,500quid a year. For some UPC or Smart users it would be 25,000 a year!

ANYTHING else is cheaper!

You can buy CAT5 cable with the plugs already on each end.

WiFi easily does 100m, never mind 30m if there is nothing in between.

marsbars

I think you can buy this in UK for a once-off payment of £160 OR £5 a month. While I understand the comments above, would it not be useful in my case - I want to get rid of Eircom house phone, have Eircom basic 1mb BB and just want to use my mobile for phone calls - nothing crazy, just when needed and to be contactable.

However my mobile phone reception is very poor. Could I not use this to boost my reception, therefore enabling me to get rid of my house phone rental charges, therefore save money?

Am I missing something?

Would the basic Eircom 1mb package handle it?

watty

You can't

The line rental is needed for Broadband even if you never make phone calls.
Minimum of about €50 a month to eircom for line rental and BB.

The 1Mbps package is only 128k upload so can barely manage this. See if O2, Meteor or 3 gives better Mobile Phone coverage.

This will give you good Mobile Coverage. But costs a lot extra. Only Vodaphoen Ireland can install it here as it needs a Mobile Phone Base Licence. It's Geo IP limited to the country it is supplied for.

This is a fail as it needs a fixed line and fixed calls are cheaper

rebel.ranter

What if a mobile company were able to offer a bundled service with fixed line BB, line rental, mobile BB, mobile calls all in one package. Woudl it make more sense then? Assuming that the bundled price woked out cheaper than a current multiple package deal.
It would mean that they mobile operator could route all the calls through their own network via the Femto cell.

watty

But Vodafone (via Vodafone, Perlico or BT Retail) is ultimately paying for eircom exchange, line rental etc..

They will want to charge SAME price for the 3G Data and get you to use the laptop on 3G instead of WiFi so as to charge you more.

What ever way you look at it, with a femto cell you are charged for BB and Mobile. It's only of value if you insist on using Mobile where there is no coverage.

A DECT landline (ordinary phone call) or Mobile with WIFi (VOIP on BB) can seemlessly use your Mobile Number for incoming and outgoing calls if your mobile is off or out of coverage. That exists today also. But they can't double charge. They can and will with a Femto.

rebel.ranter

watty wrote: »

What ever way you look at it, with a femto cell you are charged for BB and Mobile. It's only of value if you insist on using Mobile where there is no coverage.

I'd agree with this,it is an advantage to the consume to be able to do this. The mobile operator also crates an additional environment to allow users to make calls where they might not have been previously able to.
Putting costs aside, I too am puzzled as to why you would conect via 3G when you mave a more direct route using DSL.

watty

But for Femto cell you need landline AND Broadband.

You can have DECT cordless phone on landline WITHOUT broadband and have it use your mobile number. There have even been Mobiles with DECT built in that can seemlessly call/answer on landline with the Mobile number.

Femto cells are for people with lots of money, great broadband and an addiction to a Mobile Handset that can't do WiFi+VOIP.

They are a money spinner for Operators with lazy rich customers.

watty

There is a value for these in some office areas or public indoor spaces with no Mobile coverage.

marsbars

looks like I missed plenty! You can receive calls to your mobile through VOIP? Didn't realise that. Knew I could make calls - someone can ring my mobile when out of range and, if I set it up properly, I can take the call through VOIP? Would this be through Truphone or it's equivalent?

watty

All kinds of services (to your mobile number or VOIP number) ... rerouted ... to home number, VOIP number or Mobile number.

All kinds of suppliers..