What is Digg?45 Comments
- wicketr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21It might not be the best plan for you, but for my parents for instance who live on 100+ acres with limited service inside parts of their house and no service in the basement, this is a solution for them.
Just because it wouldn't help you out, doesn't mean it's a bad idea. - NekoIan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12buy one of these http://www.spotwave.com/residential/
- Zoltak, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14So the carriers would be in a win-win situation. We pay for the added signal, we provide added signal within a small footprint, and we get nothing extra except the added signal and more incentive to stay with our current carrier. The next time cellular service is upgraded to a new standard this would probably be rendered obsolete too.
No thanks, does not sound like the best plan to me. - CorpT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9What a coincidence.... they aren't forcing anyone to do it. In my house, I would consider it. I live out in the country and have fairly poor service but need reliable cell coverage for work. I'm already using Vonage but would love to have better reception on my work cell-phone.
Amazingly enough, there is a product that some people would like and others wouldn't. We're real proud that you don't want this service though. Thanks for letting us know. - TomFrost, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9So you buy your own cellular access point, which transfers your wireless calls ... through your own internet connection? I think someone tried that before. Wasn't it.. Skype? Or Vonage?
The only benefit of this versus other services are that you can use your own personal cellphone with no need for anything else. But with that in mind, it seems like it would make more sense to purchase phones that can also call on a wifi network themselves instead of needing a separate access point, and force phone manufacturers into producing more phones with this feature. A Skype-interface, if you will.
Just couldn't use it with Verizon. They'd have the feature stripped out ;-) - gostars, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5There are serious RF spectrum issues here. The spectrum used for cellular is extordinarily expensive, limited, and owned by the cellular companies. In principle they may very well be interested in letting customers spend their own money to improve the cellular network. However, there is no chance a cellular company is going to allow customers to occupy their precious spectrum willy nilly.
Getting more signal is not like shining light. You can't just put a "lamp" in an area that's dark - unless you have the skills and resources to keep this "lamp" from shining any light whatsoever outside the dark area. Allowing any "light" to escape would be detrimental to the network and other customers.
Even if consumers were skilled enough to do this, there's no chance a company is going to allow that kind of unmanaged empowerment. Even if the consumer is way out in the weeds somewhere with no chance of rf interference issues, there's still nothing to prevent a different consumer from purchasing said device and setting up to try getting stronger signal somewhere well inside the network where interference issues would certainly exist.
And finally, even if RF weren't such an overwhelming issue, this either won't work or would be prohibitively expensive with and CDMA-based technology. CDMA is extremely sensitive to timing and jitter. So either the femto box is going to be a mini-BSC (eg: a self-contained CDMA base station and switching center) and therefore prohibitively expensive, or is just not going to work with CDMA (Sprint, Verizon, US Cellular, and several other smaller carriers).
....so says me, a CDMA RF & network performance expert - Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I keep seeing people pan this idea because they don't believe that the cellular companies would help pick up the tab.
Maybe they'll give you the box or sell them very cheaply?
Perhaps you'll receive some type of compensation for every minute of 'airtime' that someone who ISN'T you uses the site?
Who knows?
To me there are bigger questions, and issues, than just the 30 cents a month it will take to leave one of these things running.
Can the output be decoded to listen in on phone calls? Willl hooking one of these to my network allow the cellular company some kind of back door access to my network? How will my ISP take to one of these boxes being hooked up? Is this a breach of my EULA? If two of them are within range of each other will they interfere? If the box is up but the Inet to it is down will my handset attempt to use the 'regular' cell network instead of this thing?
There are a whole lot of questions to be asked here, and most of them are far more important than the cost issue. - timmymac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I think they should pay the end user to install these or offer better rates when calls are routed through them.
- zosopage, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Ok, so let me get this straight... they are going to use MY internet connection, MY device, MY electricity and they will allow me to use their service and pay them to provide a service so I can receive a signal in my house that supplies my neighbors too???
Not in my house - MikeFromAmerica, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5There must be a telco stooge here. Why else would all the comments be at 0 or just 1 digg?
- jhochberg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wait a sec... you mean first I need to sign a contract for a company with crappy coverage in the areas i need it most...which means I cant switch to another provider without breaking a contract. Then if I want better coverage, I need to buy a device that improves their service overall? Pffft! I think they should give a really good incentive to customers that are willing to use this technology...ie minutes credited for people riding on your micro-cell, etc.
- dhughes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3 All the local nuts where I live are freaking out over a new cell tower in a field a mile away from anyone. They're afraid the "radiation" will give them cancer, they read it on the Internet so it must be true.
These are the same people that smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and every weekend drink until they're unconscious. I don't think the concept will work in blue-collar, hick regions. - gossipninja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I do see some benefits to this, I really think they should just make these boxes free with a usage license. Like you have to keep it up 90% of the time for x amount of time (say 12 months), because they are using YOUR bandwidth that YOU pay for. Yes it is nice you can use your cell phone in your house, but you shouldn't have to pay extra for that, if my provider didn't cover my house, i would move to a new carrier. Now obviously in some places like a cabin in the woods this is a neat idea except in the sticks there usually isn't a broadband hookup so its a moot point. I see this for business (malls and such could use these) but there are better non-carriers specific repeaters that are just as good (no internet hookup but who cares). But as far as end users are concerned this is just a way for the carriers to not have to rent land for towers.
also what about possible health implications with that level of RF? I'm reasonably sure that a cell tower has to be x distance from a dwelling to not give you cancer, these are less powerful sure, but is there still a risk? - Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well, in the end you are using VoIP technology but I wouldn't consider this VoIP in the strictest sense.
One thing that makes this superior to Skype type services is that you can use YOUR cell phone, and so can your friends, your neighbors, guests to your home, in fact anyone within reach of your "femto-site" can use their own hardware. This is a major difference between FC and Skype.
If these became available I'd almost certainly put one up at the house. - EBFoxbat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Lower my bill and I'll let my neighbors use my personal cell tower
- beanMosheen, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I'm sure they would offer an incentive to get the system working.
- mbeckfl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's a completely different technology... it just boosts the existing signal ... if you boost crap, you get 10X the crap. The femto technology will actually put a cell site in your house.
- Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Except I wouldn't have to wire up the phone of people who are visiting my house. It would just work when they walk in the door.
- AndreaMessenger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I think consumers would also be in a win-win situation. Maybe I could finally get some cell phone reception at my new house. As many times as I have to say, "Can you hear me now?," I ought to be doing commercials for Verizon.
- redthumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have often thought that big stores like WalMart and big shopping malls where you can't get a decent signal should install cellular amplifiers for the benefit of their customers. I looked into one for my house but it looked like it would run around $800 and that was too much for me.
- bluntarski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can do this now with the right antenna pointed towards the nearest cell tower and an amplifier. You then hard wire your phone to the amplifier via the little amp connector on your phone (usually hidden by a little round rubber plug).
The rig will cost you about $500 though. Some people who have home offices in the basement or who live in isolated areas are setting them up... - stuartjmoore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1isn't that what this is about?
- kd1s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ok, the only way I can see this working doesn't include femto sites per se.
Instead lets make the handsets 802.11 compatible, and then providers could offer me an incentive to open up my wireless system to their handsets. Vonage has something like this already except the main beneficiary is the customer in being able to have their phone service follow them anywhere there's a network connection.
But hell, I'd give Verizon, T-Mobile or some such a couple hudred kbits of service if they kicked some revenue back my way. - EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wi-fi enabled phones with seamless switching to VOIP make more sense anyway. That solves interference, carrier dependence, and high equipment cost issues. We already have the infrastructure--now we just need carriers to realize it's a good idea.
- gostars, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If customer demand is high enough, the carrier should work with the store to install a repeater. In some cases where demand isn't "high enough", the owner of the building can volunteer to pay for a repeater which the carrier will install and maintain.
- mbeckfl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why are people posting all these boosters / repeaters as exiting "alternatives" They clearly don't' work. You can't boost a bad signal and hope to get something good... The whole point of this new technology is to set up a personal cell tower that is linked directly to the phone company, instead of trying to squeeze a signal out of a phantom tower 50 miles away.
- h0dg3s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Having end-users buy a small femto device, similar in concept to a Wi-Fi access point, that is a personal cellular site. The femto cellular device has a cellular antenna to boost the available signal as well as an Internet connection. The device uses your Internet connection to connect to your mobile provider’s’ network and route your phone calls."
So can someone explain to me the benefits of using this over using something like Vonage? They have phones designed to use wifi signals. - quarsaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If they are really concerned about this, how about they provide you with a VOIP account to go along with your mobile.
You already have an account and phone number with them, so the paperwork overhead is lower than another company doing it.
They can leave it up to you to buy your own equipment (since VOIP routers are common and pretty cheap) and to provide your own Internet access.
And when you are at home using VOIP, you've got a great connection and you are 1 less person tying up the wireless network. - DreKor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm reasonably sure you don't understand how cellular RF works. Let me know if you can find a published source for your cancer theory.
- norcalscan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wait, using high-speed internet to link cellphone to cell-network? (Or did I not RTFA correctly) I might live in Pleasantville but wherever I've seen high-speed internet, I've had excellent cell coverage. If a phone company thinks the average consumer-base for high-speed Internet is worth servicing DSL or Cable, then the cell companies have also done the research and found those same people prefer cell service.
Bad cellphone coverage equals Rural Area
Fast Internet does not equal Rural Area
(or whatever you programmers use to == equal) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Eh, the risk of getting caught astroturfing is pretty steep. I'm sure it happens but I suspect it would mostly occur when a new product category is launched. In this case...oh wait.
- unoriginal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just need to say that the spectrum isn't owned by any of the wireless companies, as much as they might like to think so. Its licensed to them by the government.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For those still wondering what the PCS in Sprint PCS stands for...
- malkir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I haven't paid any attention to cellphone hacking/cracking/spying etc but I would think this would give people a toehold into the cell network, something they could play with to re-engineer it easily and pick up and redirect other peoples calls. Anyway, just a thought.
Next they'll turn every cell phone into an access point. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Makes sense. These "boxes" would have to come with some very restrictive agreements as well as a "permanent" installation that is very hard to just pick up and sell on Ebay.
- daverules, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1A better solution already exists.
http://www.wi-ex.com/
These work like like a wireless access point, except to telephone service. You just point the antenna reception antenna at your tower of choice and the access point device amplifies any local cell phones. It doesn't use an internet connection. The commercial rated device ($399) also works for everything except Nextel. - iamcanman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Just use one of these
http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/ - geekgal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is it required that individual customers have to buy the femto-devices? It could probably be used for a group of -say - apartments who have the same provider?
- dwiser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0check out this answer to crappy cell coverage inside this guy's house..
http://blogs.sun.com/stern/entry/home_cellular_site - p0und, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4we have the service described in the article already. its called voip.
- undersky1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Yes, there are. I work for a PR firm that specializes in online lobbying of this kind. We bombard forums and review sites such as Amazon.com and Digg.com with marketing-oriented contents. We however are not responsible for the activity on this thread; it's probably done by our competitor. If you are interested in working for us, please send me an email.
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digglobbyist@yahoo.com - EliseWright, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1I guess the added expense is the price you pay for wanting reception in those hard to reach corners of the world! Look at it this way... if you decide to jump on board and buy this magical device, the guaranteed reception will allow you to dump your land line completely.
- undersky1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Your comment was dugg down because it casted a falsely incorrect image on the telecommunication providers.
- livejamie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0how effective are the 'gold cell phone signal boosters' you see on ebay?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Amazing-Cingular-GOLD-CELL-PHONE-ANTENNA-SIGNAL-BOOSTER_W0QQitemZ270065912513QQihZ017QQcategoryZ20380QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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