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Sprint and AT&T Promising Femtocells Late 2009

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Both Sprint and AT&T are trying to carve out some new territory in your home or office by offering 3G Femtocells, presumably later this year. A Femtocell is a device that provides you with a mini-base station that basically route your calls and data, somewhat like a wireless router. The attraction here is for those folks who get a lousy signal inside their office or home. AT&T has said they will be ready by the end of 2009, and Sprint says that it will beat them to market.

Sprint had a 2G version of its femtocell available, and I’m not sure what the adoption rate on that was, but you did have to pay extra for the service, which I’m guessing kept it pretty low.

Fortunately in my case I wouldn’t need this in my home. It would come in handy at the office, but I can’t see the extra expense being worth it.

How about you? Is this something you would be interested in?

Via SlashGear

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Steven

    07/02/2009 at 8:32 am

    What kind of costs are we looking at here?

  2. DP

    07/02/2009 at 3:43 pm

    While I hate the idea of paying again for something — decent cell phone service — that I’m already presumably laying out $$ for, the AT&T service inside my 10th floor NYC apartment is abysmal enough that I would be willing to do most anything to improve it. (Ultimately including switching to Verizon!)

    But assuming the femtocell can be had at a semi-decent price (say, $200 outright, or $10 a month), it would be hard to resist. At least for me, though I can certainly understand how others might feel differently.

  3. Joseph O'Laughlin

    07/02/2009 at 10:23 pm

    In Colorado I’m living with a Sprint femtocell.
    It seems to give me connectivity in all rooms, rather than the few that worked before.

    The phone does beep every 10 or 15 minutes. Perhaps the femtocell is wavering between one weak cell tower’s coverage and another.

    $100 to get started + $5/mo was the deal when I got in to it.

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