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A Femtocell Alternative
Another CTIA has come and gone, and while the show was a bit smaller than in the past, it was loaded with high-quality products and people. The overall "themes" of the show were applications for the devices, and femtocells in the infrastructure area.
Femtocells are gaining popularity with operators because they can potentially increase coverage to those customers in fringe areas, and more coverage can translate into more customers. But femtocells require a broadband connection, and therefore are a solution only for your home. Verizon, for example, will sell you a femtocell for $250, but even when you provide the broadband, Verizon's solution only helps with voice connectivity, not data.
At CTIA there were companies promoting all sorts of femtocells, but I also came across a company promoting something a bit different, the cellular repeater. Cellular repeaters have been around for years, but they never seemed to get the attention they might have deserved, maybe because some poorly designed units caused more problems than they solved, which gave the product group a bad rap.
The device which caught my eye at the show was the iBooster from Wilson. Unlike a femtocell which requires a broadband connection, the iBooster has a long cable and a short 4" high magnetic antenna which mounts on your car's roof, and as the name implies, the device was designed specifically to work with an Apple iPhone. Inside the car, what looks like an oversized iPhone holder, mounts on the dash or connects to your car's air vents, and a power adapter plugs into your car's cigarette lighter. The iBooster will recharge your iPhone while it helps to boost your signal and a nifty design feature of the iBooster is that you can mount your iPhone in it with or without the case. If you remove the included insert, a roomy space holds your iPhone even if it’s in a case.
I’ve been testing the iBooster for a few days now, and it works quite well in the right conditions. With the system mounted in my car, and the iBooster turned off, my phone read a signal level of -45 dBm. Actually not a very bad signal. When I powered up the iBooster, the signal increased to -19 dBm or an increase of 26 dBm, pretty impressive. In terms of “bars,” the iBooster almost always increased it at least one bar, and at a few locations, I went from two bars before using the iBooster to five bars after it was turned on. I tried one location that would always drop a call, and with the iBooster turned on, no dropped calls.
Before you buy an iBooster, you should be warned about a few items. First, your iPhone must be within a few inches of the iBooster to work. Take it out of the holder and move it more than a few inches away from the iBooster, and the boost effect disappears. But at the same time, when an iPhone is mounted in an iBooster, its two bottom speakers are partially covered, making it a bit difficult to use the speakerphone function. This means a Bluetooth headphone or speakerphone is a must when using the iBooster.
The next problem is the price. The iBooster is around $250, which is about the same price as Verizon’s femtocell. Of course the iBooster can be used in your car, where the femtocell can not. Plus, the iBooster can be used in your home with the addition of a 12V power supply and some imagination on the antenna mounting.
There are also several benefits of a booster over a femtocell. One benefit is that a booster will help with all types of reception, no matter what technology it uses. Both Sprint’s Airave or Verizon’s Network Extender femtocell only support voice calls and neither supports 2G or 3G data. A booster supports any over-the-air technology, and therefore supports both voice and data connectivity.
There is another benefit of a booster over a femtocell. Boosters are frequency specific but not operator specific. Should you purchase the Verizon femtocell but later decide you want to switch to Sprint instead, you’re basically out of luck because the Verizon femtocell can’t be enabled for Sprint or any other operator. A booster will work with any operator whose frequencies that it supports. Most boosters, like the iBooster, are dual-band so they should support all US operators with the exception of iDen on Sprint, or 3G with T-Mobile, both of which use a different frequency from typical.
Overall, if you use your iPhone often in your car, and you have been bothered with poor coverage, the iBooster might be a sound investment and worth the relatively high price. But do remember, your iPhone needs to be very close to the iBooster for it to work, so Bluetooth will need to be part of the equation.
If this article was of interest, you will definitely want to take a look at “Worldwide Micro, Pico, and Femtocell Market Analysis and Semiconductor Content,” (#IN0904374GW), due out soon. This report will be available online at:
http://www.instat.com/catalog/wcatalogue.asp?id=29
- Allen Nogee - Principal Analyst , E-mail:anogee@reedbusiness.com
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