Vodafone improves mobile reception for everyone

Posted on 25 Jun 2009 at 18:04

Suffering from poor reception could be a thing of the past with Vodafone's new femtocell personal 3G access point. The Vodafone Access Gateway acts as a personal 3G base station, routing calls and internet traffic over your network connection.

"The Vodafone Access Gateway will boost indoor mobile phone coverage for customers who today, find they need to move around the rooms in their home to get a consistent signal strength," said Ian Shepherd, consumer director of Vodafone UK. "We are committed to delivering the best, most reliable network and this is another step towards maintaining a seamless service."

The Gateway works seamlessly with 3G handsets: when you approach your home, your mobile will automatically switch from the normal Vodafone network to your femtocell. Once connected you can make and receive phone calls in the same way (up to four calls can be made at once, for multi-phone households), and use Vodafone's online services as normal. For security, you have to register to the telephone number of any handsets that are allowed to use the Gateway.

The only slight disappointment is that there's no reduction in cost of phone calls using the femtocell, and all calls are charged at your standard rate. The same is true for web browsing, even though you're routing internet traffic over your broadband connection. Still, for anyone that lives in an area with poor mobile reception, the Gateway could be an essential product.

The Gateway will be available from 1 July 2009 and will be available from free or as part of a price plan from £15 a month. It can also be bought for a one-off fee of £160. We'll bring you a full review soon.

Author: David Ludlow

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