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Will Femtocells revolutionise triple-play packages?
Mobile operators like Vodafone will bundle ADSL broadband, a femtocell router and two mobile phones by the end of the year, speculates femtocell-maker Thomson.
Sound interesting? Perhaps not at face value but femtocell routers, like Thomson’s new TG870, do so much more than just telephony and mobile broadband.
Femtocells are little 3G mobile phone masks and the premise is they will sit side-by-side with Wifi routers in the home, giving your mobile phone excellent coverage indoors. If you make a phone call through it, the call gets routed through your ADSL to the mobile phone operator’s “femtocell aggregator” which is plugged into the tradition phone network.
The TG870 outputs 3.6mbit/sec HSDPA and 802.11g Wifi and combines an ADSL modem and a four port Ethernet switch. Your mobile phone can surf the net indoors and, since so much bandwidth is available, mobile TV, a resounding failure in the UK so far, becomes a doddle to do too.
Calls made on your mobile over the Femtocell are essentially Voip calls, so costs are much lower and that could rip control away from BT and SKY in the race for triple/quadruple-play (Telephony, TV, Broadband) packages.
Thomson’s TG870 also integrates home automation software. You can dim lights, set timers or monitor your house using a simple interface on a regular 3G phone. The TG870 is also a uPnP server; Any video, music and photos on hard disks plugged into the TG870’s master USB port can be accessed by devices around the house.
Jeff Land, business development manager for Thomson, says mobile phone operators will be the main retailers of femtocell routers. The TG870 will cost around €200 (£153 approx.) when it goes on sale in November, but in the long run the company is aiming for a €90 (£69 approx.) price tag.
The coverage of the TG870 is on a par with Wifi routers in home environments, but Land says that’s using one tenth of the power of Wifi and it’s easy to increase the range legally.
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