AT&T 3G MicroCell: A Comprehensive Exploration
by Brian Klug on April 1, 2010 1:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- AT&T
- Microcell Review
- Mobile
Conclusions
If you're stuck in a location with absolutely no coverage, the 3G MicroCell is undoubtedly going to improve coverage, and to that extent, it does what it's supposed to do. On the flip side, if you're somewhere with relatively consistent coverage, the MicroCell is only going to frustrate you with its inconsistent at best call handover performance. As far as data is concerned, unless you have a compelling reason to, it makes more sense to use WiFi instead of 3G for both performance and battery reasons. It's definitely a feature to build a real 3G stack on the femtocell, especially when the competitor offerings are essentially voice-only 2.5G offerings, but performance is still much greater over WiFi than HSPA is, yet.
It's obvious that there are still a number of lingering problems with the MicroCell. The MicroCell's relatively abysmal handover performance is something which absolutely must be addressed before nationwide rollouts start in mid April, hopefully even before then. It's a challenging engineering problem, but customers are going to expect that installing what amounts to a cell tower in their home improves performance and coverage no matter what the case - handovers need to be just as transparent as they are elsewhere. There's no excuse for anything less. While we haven't tested Samsung's CDMA solution for Sprint and Verizon or T-Mobile's UMA, it's a fair bet that unreliable handovers are just as frustrating of an occurrence.
In the broader scope of things, there's the very real expectation that femtocells are the solution to our looming spectrum crisis. Unfortunately, this current iteration of devices doesn't let you transparently build out the public cellular network in a manner that benefits everyone - in fact, a lot of people think femtocells do just that. In the case of the AT&T MicroCell, you benefit a maximum of 10 possible people, four at a time. Verizon and Sprint offer 100 and 50 respectively, and a maximum of three at a time. Numbers like these aren't going to come close to mitigating load in even dense urban environments, because you can't share your femtocell. In a lot of ways, T-Mobile's decision to go with UMA - which is constrained solely by WiFi capacity - makes a lot of sense. In fact, it's probably a better power savings to just run one radio on the handset instead of two, and WiFi handovers from AP to AP are largely a solved problem with enterprise gear.
Subscribers that simply want to improve coverage for everyone, perhaps in return for being able to roam on other femtocells while moving around, this current generation of devices isn't going to satisfy. Femtocells are still in their infancy, hopefully in time we'll see apprehension about letting other phones use your bandwidth (in turn improving the network for everyone) gradually erode away. Until then, if signal is absolutely abysmal in your home or office, they're a very practical solution.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
63 Comments
View All Comments
A beautiful mind - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
My Nokia N900 already uses the home/office wifi connection to access the internet, with the possibility to receive/make calls from/to skype.There is absolutely no extra functionality that is provided by the femtocell approach.
softdrinkviking - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
For you and me, this is true.But not for everyone.
That's the really sad thing about this device. It's designed as a way to nickel and dime poor souls whose homes are in a dead zone and absolutely have to answer their phone for business.
nafhan - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Great article, and you did an excellent job of diving into the tech behind the femtocell.An interesting follow up to this article might be to see what kind of results you get from purchasing an antenna and repeater. I've seen antenna/repeater setups online in the $350 and up range, and wondered how they would do. If they work OK, it might be a viable alternative, especially for people without good internet connections.
gwolfman - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Where is the print article feature on the new site?Maroon - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
They've been sneaking these things in Apple stores. No wonder the iPhone feelgood only lasts untill you get out of the store and have to rely on the "standard" AT&T network. LOL.soccerharms - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Are you kiddin' me? I am going to approach this from two angles. The first being that this article is completely fake. ITS APRIL 1st people! The tech community should have an uproar for such a device. We buy internet and it is usually our responsibility to distribute it around the house with a router for wireless and whatnot. HOWEVER, we do not buy a wireless......phone plan with the intention on increasing a carriers crappy signal in our own house out of our pocket. That's ludacris! There is another much cheaper solution...........its called a LAN line with a cordless phone HA!The only company that could profit from a device like this would be Apple. But they would have to make it a little more shiney and put that quarter eaten logo on the side :)
Let the battles begin....
Jaybus - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
This is like buying an airline ticket only to find there is no flight. Since they don't have a flight, the airline offers to sell you your own airplane. You have to provide your own pilot, fuel, and maintenance, but you still have to pay them the full price for a ticket whenever you fly your own airplane. So my idea is to start a car rental business that has no cars. Anyone willing to pay AT&T for a microcell that uses their own Internet connection would surely be willing to pay me a rental fee for driving their own car.HotFoot - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
Eh... much of this market is iPhone users - people already willing to accept the concept of ecosystem lock-in. By a similar analogy to your car rental company, they're already willing to buy a car from a company that requires that they drive only on roads built or approved by that company, buy gas only at that company's stations, and buy car insurance from that company.Why not charge them for the roadside delivery of a jerry can of gas when the customer finds out the station filled their tank with water instead of fuel?
yacoub - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
I give it a year or two before the first cancer danger report comes out. ;)loydcase - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - link
AT&T cell reception at my house is weak in spots. OTOH, if a femtocell allows me to rip out my landlines, it might be worth it. So I'd like to know if a femtocell would be viable for that purpose.