Posted by: Michael Disabato
Dave Passmore is finishing up a paper on femtocells. These are tiny cellular base stations that live in your home or office and use your broadband to connect to the mobile operator's network. They serve to improve cellular reception in areas of weak coverage. They also serve to offload traffic from the operator's network. And that's where the fun comes in.
Now I can see the benefit of these things, but I'm curious as to why the mobile operators feel they can charge you for one when it fixes a customer service problem, offloads traffic from their network, and consumes your bandwidth, which may cause you problems with bandwidth caps as we move forward. (Yes, Dave, I'm one of those.) At the minimum, they should match or improve your account and allow you the same features you have from their normal network.
The other issue will be one of network neutrality. Femtocells rely on your broadband, and if Verizon or AT&T or Comcast or whomever have caps that your cellular traffic goes against, you could find yourself blocked before the month is over.
There is a lot more detail in Dave's report, but these are things to think about.
Let's get the debate going and tell the operators what we think.
Michael
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