Over the past two years the carrier debate has really heated up. AT&T has been dangling its waning iPhone exclusivity while Verizon has poked fun at the former's 3G coverage. As the number of smartphones and other data heavy devices on cellular networks increases, carriers will have to find new ways to manage the load.  

Simply upgrading the network is an obvious but expensive option. Large corporations and businesses often have cell repeater nodes on their campuses (picocells), something not feasible for normal users at home. There's another option however: the femtocell. Acting as an in-home cellular node, a femtocell uses your broadband internet connection to route cell traffic. The idea is you get great performance since the access node is in your home and it alleviates network congestion by using your internet connection for traffic.

If you have spotty reception at your house and want to improve it a femtocell may be a real option. To find out, we took AT&T's 3G MicroCell for much more than just a spin around the block.  If you wanted to know everything from how these things work to whether or not they're worth it, read on.