Femtos still on the sideline

In an article published this month on Fierce Wireless Europe, Paul Rasmussen writes what many in the industry already know, that femtocells are still on the sidelines.

Mr. Rasmussen quotes Ovum analyst Steven Hartley saying femtos remain to costly and complex for a mass-market coverage solution.

Speaking quite candidly, Ericsson CTO Hakan Eriksson stated "the femtocell solves no p

roblem from my viewpoint."

Pointing out the obvious, Mr. Eriksson goes on to say that "all the devices that are generating mobile data are Wi-Fi enabled."

Not a good coverage play, not a good offload play... it's no wonder Femtos remain on the sidelines.

With more than 200m Wi-Fi access points installed in the world today, it seems that Wi-Fi is the dominate in-building wireless technology.

Boosting Signal Boost

This week Kineto held an event in the UK to announce the availability of new Android smartphones with Orange’s Signal Boost service.

Signal Boost, as the name implies, uses Wi-Fi to boost the mobile signal of Orange customers when they are at home or in the office. Signal Boost was quietly introduced to the market a couple years ago, and has become key service offer.

Director of product marketing Paul Jevons said a few words about the success of the Signal Boost service. Here are some of the highlights:

• The Signal Boost customer base has grown by more than 50% in the last 6 months, carrying millions of calls every month.
• Signal Boost has “positive customer retention,” and customers say that “there is an improvement in coverage and call quality” when using the service.
• Customers appreciate Signal Boost. 50% say the Signal Boost feature influenced their handset choice, and 80% rate it as “easy to set up.”
• A “large portion” of active Signal Boost customers consider it “an essential feature.”

The event was hosted at Tutton’s in Covent Garden. Their private, underground “vault” rooms were an ideal place to highlight how Wi-Fi and Orange’s Signal Boost service can bring mobile services anywhere.

The event resulted in a lot of great coverage in Telecom TV, Total Telecom, Recombu, Pocket Lint, CNET and more.