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UK Gets Europe's First 3G Femtocell
judgecorp writes "Femtocells have been on the horizon for a while, but the UK just got the first 3G femtocell launch in Europe, by Vodafone. The device connects to handsets in the room and links them to the cellular network over broadband. It's a classic win-win, because it gives the user better coverage and takes traffic off the service provider's network. The only complaint might be from the broadband provider, who could be carrying traffic for a rival. Vodafone isn't pushing the data angle, but since it has HSPA, the product could work just fine with laptops and dongles. Femtos have been in limbo waiting for serious launches, but judging from the list of speakers at the World Femtocell Summit in London, Vodafone might not be the only one."
I can pay for overpriced mobile data charges while paying for over-subscribed and under-performing broadband!
It's fucking win-win for big business.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Uhhh, no. It's a classic fuck-the-consumer, what-the-fuck-were-they-smoking, you-have-to-be-fucking-kidding-me deal.
I got this spiel from Verizon (USA) a little while back. Unlucky enough to have marginal service where I live, I asked a Verizon store rep what could be done about it. He then came back with a nice box and said, "It's really cool. It's called a thingmajiggy and it will boost your cellphone service through your Internet connection." I thought, "Wow, that's pretty cool of them".
Just one thing everyone forgets or wants to gloss over in this massive techno-wankathon over how cool it is.... Verizon tried to charge me $250. Two-Hundred-And-Fifty-Bucks.
This is what you are getting for $250. The ability for ANY Verizon phone within range, which from what I understand is about as good as an access point, to PREFER your "femtocell" and place the calls across your Internet connection back into Verizon. Everyone still gets charged for their usage.
Why would I PAY Verizon to basically expand their own coverage area? Why would I incur the bandwidth costs for unknown cellphone users around me? Yeah, I couldn't fucking figure it out either.
Before anybody gets real hot about how cool these things are, just realize that you are paying these people directly to expand their service coverage. That's just plain nuts. If it was $40 or $50 bucks like a cheap router and I could restrict access by IMEI, *maybe* it might be an interesting deal.
Wow. In the UK it seems, not only will you pay to increase their service coverage, but monthly as well. I hope a reach-around comes with that deal. Gotta admit, that's one hell of a commitment to increasing coverage and creating a reliable network. Let's make everyone pay multiple month's of service up front along with an additional monthly service cost to put them to work for us.
Total. Fucking. Insanity. /END RANT
What stops you from doing the exact same thing using wifi? You connect your phone through wifi to a VoIP gateway that will route the call to any phone number you want to call. You just need a VoIP client installed on your handset. If you have a open handset, for example an Android one, that's easy and you can use this today within any wifi network you have access to.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
WRONG - Orange was the first UK/European company to offer their service via a broadband connection. Their femtocell offering was called unique phone and was released well over a year ago!
This seems to be targetted at home users, which isn't what I was expecting.
There are lots of old buildings in Europe, and some of them have really, really thick stone walls. Some of them only have moderately thick stone walls. Something that provided a signal in buildings like this would be useful.
$250 is not a lot for a device like that. You're forgetting that the ADSL routers (and every other piece of hardware) only reached their low prices through massive mass production. You're not going to get that for a niche device like this.
You Americans seem to be completely out of touch with what electronics actually cost to produce. This, the whining about Apple's price decreases "cheating" early adopters, and everyone talking about "overpriced" $800 cell phones in comparison to "$99" phones you buy on credit disguised as network service.
Why do you all have entitlement issues, even the nerds? If $250 is too much for you, DON'T BUY IT. Seriously. I've even seen some say that the cell phone company should replace their damaged "$99" ($800) phone for free if they expect them to keep paying the "network" bills.
Also, the cell phone companies are not charities. They do a lot of shitty things, but if you expect 100% coverage in the whole country, maybe you should have made it a license requirement!
My Orange Nokia 6301 supposedly does this in the UK.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_Access_Network
The 3G network "3" also claims to use Skype automatically to reduce call costs.
Lots of people seem to be assuming that this is you paying the network to extend their network for anyone to use.
It isn't.
If you read the article (I know, radical), you'll see that only four phones, which you need to register, will be able to use the femto-cell. So no, you won't be providing your neighbours with improved service over your own connection (unless you register their phone).
While it's pretty expensive, I'd actually be tempted by this. I can't get a reliable mobile signal in my flat, because of the construction of the building (mobile reception outside is fine).
Of course, it doesn't say if calls made over the femto cell are cheaper than over their network. I would hope they were, it would mean I could pretty much ignore my landline, which I only use because I can't be mobile reception.
Paul Leader
Why would you use a laptop and a dongle to transfer data over this thing? What was the submitter thinking, why wouldn't you just use wifi?
"It's certainly the first of its kind in Europe, and I see Vodafone says it will work over every home broadband line,"
I had a Samsung Femtocell installed in my basement last November running over a residential DSL line. It's from a Slovenian mobile operator Mobitel - I even written a blog post about it.
When you're at home just redirect your mobile to you landline FFS! Or is using a phone that plugs into the wall just so uncool these days that you'd sooner be with no phone service at all?
Boring!!!! I would love to let anyone use it..... .....as it's my network am i not entitled to sniff traffic that flows across it?
Er, no. They're carrying traffic for their (paying) customer.
Maybe I've misunderstood what all this is about, but would it help you avoid roaming charges? If inbound and outbound voice calls are broadband-routed up to your local "femtocell", then it might not matter if you are in another country.
Hmm, I am from the UK but I spend almost all my time living in Brussels. I maintain a UK cellphone for the times when I am back though. If possible it might be cool to get one of these and plug into my Belgian broadband. A local access point without the international roaming charges.
That could be sweet!
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
If this is using your broadband connection to allow GSM mobiles to connect to Voda's network, would you pick up anything interesting with Wireshark? Could you (for example) put the femtocell into "promiscous" mode and get neighbours' phones to automatically prefer to connect to it?
According to a subsequent conversation with Vodafone, if you have a £30 a month contract with Vodafone, you can ask for one free, or have it bundled into your new contract. It's £5 a month on other contracts, and £160 to buy if you are pay-as-you-go. Yes, you are providing Vodafone with free backhaul, but you aren't paying vastly over the cost of the box for it. And yes, you can do the same with Wi-Fi.
then it should be easy enough to tunnel to the UK. Some Femtocells (no idea about this vodafone one) have built in GPS to the cell can locate itself. Officially I believe it's pitched to make sure the femtocell is licensed to be used, but everybody immediately pointed out it was to stop it being used for roaming. Was never quite sure how the GPS would work though, unless it was in the T&C that you had to balance your femtocell on a window ledge.
Am I missing something but if you are at home couldn't you use your telephone (the one with the broadband) or use VOIP. Why would you use your cell over your own infrastructure and let vodafone charge you for doing so. Now if you got a discount for making calls via the femtocell i.e. you got a discounted rate when at home then (if the price was right) you could use your cell all the time and not the house phone.
Good point, actually I'd pay extra for that :)
Paul Leader
I often visit the USA for several weeks at a time.
With this device, I'll simply be able to plug the cell into my broadband in the US and have access as if I was home in the UK, without any worries!
I do begrudge the idea of paying Vodafone for traffic in the UK, but outside, this sounds ideal!
What a great idea! Can't believe I didn't think of trying this! That basically amounts to free international calling, and the ability to use my american cell phone (without a SIM card) overseas!
Sprint makes a device called the Airave that acts as a mini-cell tower over a DSL line. I imagine it could be plugged into any DSL line overseas, and route calls and voicemails to my cell phone in another country. Even if Sprint had some geographical limitations as to where the traffic could come from, I could tunnel the data back to my house and have it leave from there, at the expense of a little extra lag.
Does the wireless spectrum match up in, lets say Europe, to allow for this? It would save me a fortune in international calls and prepaid cell phones on trips.
Well you also use your landline to get DSL, which you need in order to get that femtocell to work so you can make calls. Circular logic.
We have our offices in a high-rise building, and essentially you can't use your mobile phone as the quality is very bad. I assume it is because we are too high up and have too many other cells in range so the phone is constantly switching cells. Proximus (basically Vodafone Belgium) offered us something which I assume must have been using similar technology two years ago. They wanted 1000 Euros so we declined.
This is good news. Mobile internet is so important. I am looking for good mobile web hosting service. Nice story here. Thanks.
I'm currently a triallist for this service, with poor reception of all the UK networks where I live (down a hole out in the sticks). I've been very pleased with the service during the trial, but I wouldn't spend £160 for the femtocell device. As I understand it, the box will support up to 4 simultaneous 3G voice calls, but it is possible to register more than 4 mobiles to use the device.
The traffic is carried back to Vodafone's gateway over a UDP-encapsulated IPsec/ESP tunnel, and my box also generates a lot of NTP queries to keep the internal clock on frequency (required tolerance 100 parts per billion!). Some femtocell devices can also take sync by receiving a local base station but I don't know whether this particular device would do that if it were in a better signal area.
Let's hope Voda allow me to keep the box after the trial.
Verizon has what appears to be a great femtocell - except that they want $250 for it!! And the only reason I want one is because, contrary to their ads, they Can't hear me now when calling from my supposedly covered home.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Can it be hacked to pair with my own Asterisk server?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
The only complaint might be from the broadband provider, who could be carrying traffic for a rival.
The reason I use Comcast is because I can use high bandwidth services. I know Comcast doesn't have a cell phone network, but trust me, your ISP, weather or not they have a cell network, are not complaining about finding new reason why you should keep your service.
Innocent, until proven guilty. One of the older defaults in Western civilization.
I have seen these products installed since years ago here in Portugal, mainly in basement datacenters, and companies (both small companies and big companies) that where located in low coverage areas. Usually they would be connected directly to a phone line or a fibre cable, but they were there and this is nothing new in technology itself.
Hmm, is your ISP allowed to sniff your traffic? Is your phone provider allowed to listen to your calls?
IANAL, but I suspect the answer to your question will be the same as the ones I just posed.
In all likely-hood it would only be legal to sniff traffic with the permission of whoever's taffic it was.