What is a femtocell?

A femtocell is like a mini-cell phone tower. It is a thing that connects to the internet (via some router), and sends your cell-phone signal via the internet into the normal cell phone network.

It allows a cell phone company to have a mini-tower whereever you put it.

Sprint currently has Airave - it offers 5,000 square feet of coverage and allows unlimited calls within range (for a set of subscribers of your choosing).

T-Mobile, I don’t think, has a femtocell solution, though I am not sure what the difference is in functionality for T-Mobile @Home.

Sprint’s solution works with its phones, but T-Mobile requires WiFi enabled phones.

I wonder how strong the radio waves are, since if you ask someone whether they would want to live near a cell-phone tower, I believe the general answer is no. It may be for aesthetic reasons, though for me it would be for health reasons. But since this a cool technology, it is allowed in the home. Well if you are using a wireless router, like me, then it doesn’t matter.

If the airave,femtocell,etc.. also had a wireless connection, then you could maybe even get paid by a cell company. Yes, they are giving you free talk time when you use the femtocell, but let’s say you connect a bunch of them on the borders of your property, you are increasing the quality of their network.

If airave cost $50 and covers 5,000 square feet, the cost is 1 cent per square foot of coverage.

Let’s say a cell tower costs $250,000 and covers a radius of 1.5 square miles (area of coverage is 7 square miles) then the cost per square foot of coverage is like .13 cents

If the tower costs $1,000,000 and covers 3 square miles, the cost is 1.1 cents per square foot.