A beginner's guide to femtocells

No, Broadband Genie isn't branching out into biology and femtocells aren't a weird disease, but something that will be of interest to anyone struggling to get a mobile phone signal at home.

What is a femtocell?

To quote the all-knowing Wikipedia a femtocell is a “small cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business”.

Base stations are the receiver/transmitters that provide a mobile network, and you'll spot examples like the one pictured here all over the place. Toting various shapes of antenna they can be found on top of buildings and towers, or hidden away inside church spires and other discreet locations (true fact: there are base station spotters who track them down and note the location and identifying serial numbers).

Clearly though the many base stations around the country still fail to provide universal coverage. Many areas have poor signal because they don't have enough stations, while in some places the network is blocked by buildings or geographical features.

But a femtocell is your own personal base station that can give perfect network signal anywhere, even in places with no coverage at all.

How do they work?

It's a very simple solution – they use your home broadband line. Resembling a wireless modem, femtocells route all your calls over the internet, taking advantage of the speed and reliability of a fixed line. Because the base station is right there in your house it (should) always provide a perfect signal, even if the network is usually blocked by the lay of the land or your building walls. The mobile phone doesn't know any different – as far as it is concerned you're just using a normal mobile network so there are no modifications to be made.

As a bonus, widespread use of femtocells should take some pressure off the base stations so the rest of us may get better internet speeds and fewer dropped calls.

Why would I need it?

Ever had to wander out into the garden to get a signal, or waved your handset around in front of a window in the vain hope of getting a bar or two? That's why you might need a femtocell. No matter how bad the network coverage at your home, so long as you have even a basic broadband connection then you can use a femtocell to ensure perfect coverage.

Since you're reading Broadband Genie it's probably fair to assume that you have a mobile phone and that it is an important part of your social and/or business life. It's also not unlikely that many of you spend more time talking on your mobile than the landline, something which is only going to become more common. Hands up who would cancel their landline phone if it wasn't needed for broadband...

Where can I buy a femtocell?

Vodafone is the only company offering femtocells in the UK right now. Dubbed Sure Signal, the Vodafone femtocell is £50 for subscribers paying at least £25 per month on a mobile bill, and £120 for everyone else. Those are one-off costs – there's no ongoing sub fee or other charges. Not exactly cheap, but if other networks follow prices should fall. More positively, Vodafone states that the minimum connection speed is only 1mb, which opens it up to a huge number of people all around the UK.

The lack of availability on other networks is perplexing but there was a positive sign at the beginning of the year when news came out of Mobile World Congress that T-mobile, O2 and Orange had signed up to the femtocell standards group and were allegedly preparing to roll out the tech in 2010 (try to ignore that it's over halfway through the year now, think positive).

Any downsides?

The big problem with femtocells – aside from lack of availability – is they need a broadband line, which isn't much help if you're out in the countryside and can't get anything but 56k dialup. No point if you want one for mobile broadband, either, since a broadband line is needed anyway. Plus it's going to consume data, which may be a problem for particularly restrictive broadband contracts.

One argument you'll see cropping up whenever femtocells are discussed is a perfectly legitimate point: why should we pay extra to get signal on a mobile phone that already costs us every month? It's hard to argue against this, charging customers to fill holes in the network can charitably be described as cheeky, especially when it also uses your internet connection and you still have to pay for the phone calls.

Assuming femtocells ever show up on other providers it's probably a smart idea to wait and see what happens on the pricing front. My wildly-optimistic hope is that as well as bundling the femtocells in free with a contract we'll also see reduced call costs to reflect the fact that our homes have become part of the network.