Femtocells - definitely a saviour, not a scam

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 12 April 2011 14:45

Opinion and Analysis

The only scam around femtocells is the ridiculously bad media coverage that suggests that femtocells are a scam, when really they're like a 3G Wi-Fi device for your phone's voice, SMS and MMS capabilities.

The ridiculous media coverage over the past 24 hours suggesting that Optus femtocells are a scam are the real scam, with femtocells being an excellent way to boost mobile phone reception in indoor areas where traditionally reception has always been weaker.

Yes, there is a cost to get a femtocell - it isn't free to manufacture, after all - but the stark reality is that until Optus introduced its femtocell trial into Australia, no Australian telco was talking about femtocells at all.

This is despite over 350,000 femtocells in use in the US and over 1.7 million of them in use worldwide by the end of 2010. Several months into 2011, that figure has obviously grown, now boosted even further by Optus' Australian femtocell trial.

Optus wants to charge either $60, $120 or $240 for the femtocell depending on the type of pre-paid or post-paid customer that you are, and isn't going to unmeter femtocell usage, at least at the moment, with the femtocell estimated to chew up to 1GB of data per month from your wired Optus broadband connection.

While there are hysterical cries from a cynical, jaded media that Optus is profiteering, overcharging and compensating for 'poor coverage', the real scandal is that more telcos aren't bringing femtocells to the Australian market.

Personally I'm disappointed in the media coverage that paints Optus as the villain - the real villains are the telcos who outright refuse to make femtocells available, and who denigrate Optus for actually doing something positive to improve 3G coverage in a very real and immediate way, as opposed to months or years-long tower rollouts.

After all, Vodafone promises its network will be upgraded - by the end of the year! Tough luck if you need better reception now.

If you're an Optus customer that wishes they had better indoor reception at the home or office, there's now a solution, if you're in the initial Optus trial area.

Naturally, you could always just ditch Optus and go to Telstra, but that's not something that just everyone can up and do at the drop of a hat.

So'¦ femtocells are a saviour, not a scam. Anyone who tells you they're a scam is scamming YOU, clearly without any shame.