Super-fast 3G and cheap mobile calls are coming

 

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Posted on 2 May 2008 at 11:14

Computer Shopper managed to get an exclusive first look at Ubiqusys' femtocell technology, which will provide super-fast 3G data and cheap mobile phone calls inside your home. The technology is essentially a private 3G access point that you connect to your broadband connection. Your 3G mobile phones then connect to this when you're at home routing data and voice calls over your internet connection, rather than the mobile phone network, resulting in cheaper calls and data.

The advantage of this technology is that it will work with any 3G telephone. Competing products, such as BT's Fusion require you to use special Wifi phones. Not only does this limit your choice, but Wifi isn't as reliable as 3G, and you can get problems at home.

Ubiquisys' first product is the ZoneGate, which will be available through mobile telephone operators only. This is because the 3G radio spectrum is owned by the operators and can't be used by anyone else without permission. This attractive device (pictured) plugs into your existing home router via Ethernet. The key thing about it is that it has no buttons, so all you need to do is plug it in. The configuration is then handled by operator you've bought from, identifying itself through its SIM card.

Part of the configuration will involve setting which phones are allowed to connect to it. This decision will ultimately lie with the server providers, but femtocells will be restricted so that only phones on the same network will be able to connect. There's likely to be an option to add new phones to your femtocell, but there are no details of how this will be implemented.

Ubiquisys has also struck a deal with Netgear to provide the 3G technology for the company's DVG834GH Femtocell Voice Gateway. This is a combined Femtocell and wireless router. In this product, just like the ZoneGate, the 3G part will be configured automatically by the mobile operator, while the Wifi and router part will be configured as normal.

Once the femtocell is up and working, it cleverly monitors the surrounding environment for competing 3G signals, both from other femtocells and the macro mobile network. If it encounters strong signals, it reduces power; where there are weak signals it increases power. Typically, even on the lowest power setting, there's enough power to deliver a strong signal to a large house.

The technology is impressive in operation. We saw a demo with a standard Nokia N95 8GB mobile phone. When in range of the femtocell the operator name changed to the name of the home, rather than a generic one like Vodafone or T-Mobile. We then performed some web browsing and watched some YouTube videos at real broadband speed. This is because your 3G speed is running at 7.2Mbit/s because you're right next to the access point and because your femtocell doesn't have anyone else competing for its bandwidth, like you do when you're outside. The other main advantage is that as you're using your own broadband connection, the usual 3G restrictions, such as not being allowed to use video services or VoIP, don't apply.

The femtocell can also bridge the connection between your phone and your home network. We managed to stream a video file stored on a Media Center PC directly to our phone, which is pretty impressive.