Comments on: Sprint gets ready to rock out with its 3G femtocell out

By: Don Louie Cantone

Don Louie Cantone — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:56:51 +0000

I hope they get rid of the recurring charge to use minutes

By: F1

F1 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:08:37 +0000

Sorry,please disregard “however” in the first paragraph!

Thank You

By: F1

F1 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:59:49 +0000

Sadly after 12 years of reasonable service,
over the past year, since moving into one of those neighborhoods in L.A.,
however,I did turn down the Sprint Airave,since for important calls I can simply switch over to free roaming for a couple of hundred minutes in a month.
In addition, you need to have the seperate expense of an IP,i.e Cable/DSL wired Internet service, which in turn goes against the wireless lifestyle concept.

Someday in not too distant future, we will have a true wireless booster, now that I would be intersted in, by that time I will i have probably moved again. C’est la Vie!

Thank You

By: anonymousTSR

anonymousTSR — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:14:16 +0000

Forget 3G! Bring on the 4G Femtocell! That’s cutting edge, and revolutionary…

Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Findlay United States

By: Walken

Walken — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:21:25 +0000

I’ve had an Airave for years. It can be set up to allow only restricted Sprint customers (your phones) or all Sprint customers within range to utilize it. As Frank said above, I was given mine for free due to a dead spot in my neighborhood…which was in the middle of town, no less. They also waived the monthly access fee.

Thankfully I moved so I no longer have this need, but I can certainly vouch for the value of this product, and a 3G version will only be better.

By: long_austin

long_austin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:57:50 +0000

Next (early 2010) will be the enterprise edition which will have 6 simultaneous calls and then one with 32 for business purposes. These devices are used on the fringe of coverage or where the signals do not penetrate the structures. We have other antennae for enterprise needs, but they require a commit and probably 25 phones plus.

By: long_austin

long_austin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:51:23 +0000

This device has a 25km distance limit for e911 purposes (15mi) and uses GPS to register itself on the network. There are other parameters as well for compliance, FCC regs, but it works well. It does require dsl or cable access to tunnel the cdma signal (voip) to the nearest tower. It is not for data use since it connects to your home internet connection. It allows for up to 50 users registered but only 3 simultaneous call at a time with a 5000 sq ft radius. You can extend the antenna to get coverage as you need a GPS signal (near a window).

By: Chuckie

Chuckie — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:56:42 +0000

@ bonesb

Thank you oh kind one for sitting me strait. Im glad your waste of a life includes time for you to research things for me and then come here and making post telling me to learn something.

Again Thank you

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:53:13 +0000

Sprint oftentimes gives the airave for free and rebates the recurring fee for people with lousy service at home. So they aren’t charging extra for them not having acceptable coverage.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:23:54 +0000

I am a member of a group that has a suite in a cave complex. 84′ under the surface, if it’s not hardwired it probably won’t penetrate the surface. Thus, some one has a Nextel repeater setup down there. It’d be all sorts of awesome if we could hook up a femtocell and get full service support. Think outside the box guys, there are real world conditions that make stuff like this totally practical.

By: mulri

mulri — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:47:09 +0000

@Atown

Apologies. I’m a verizon guy and thought that Sprint had the same issue. I’m about to abandon Verizon until they can produce a world phone that has wifi. The BB Tour is useless for data internationally unless you want to pay some obscene rate per MB.
Lack of wifi in a smartphone is just dumb.

By: bob

bob — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:36:30 +0000

Then you better bring a sprint airave if you want service.

And don’t always blame the cell companies for lousey service, it’s typically due to stupid zoning boards not allowing them to install a tower.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:33:59 +0000

I agree with others. I wish other carries supported UMA like TMO does on some of their devices. I have used it and it works great. Nothing like being a U.S. TMO customer and placing a phone call over a WiFi connection in a foreign country and not having to pay for it. UMA worked great in my home two. I always had five bars!

By: Atown

Atown — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:32:15 +0000

@mulri……excuse me!!!! I’m using wifi as we speak on my Pre, and there will be more to come.

By: J.P.Michaels

J.P.Michaels — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:22:37 +0000

Sorry Guys but this article doesn’t make too much sense to me, what is this femtocell suppose to do?
Get me a better Cell signal (like a Booster)or get me 3G Data improvements?

By: db

db — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:13:29 +0000

@~Phel

Perfect. Epic Win.

By: ~Phel

~Phel — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:03:46 +0000

I live in your house bob

By: bob

bob — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:53:09 +0000

You people with “I don’t see the point of this I get service in my house” are STUPID!” Other people exist besides you.

Not everybody lives in your house. Not everyone gets service at home, or in their office.

By: mulri

mulri — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:46:50 +0000

I love that cell phone companies want us to pay for these things. That’s basically saying, “our service sucks and can’t meet our customer expectations, so instead of fixing this problem ourselves why don’t we charge our customers to fix our deficiencies.”

Classic move for cell companies. They make billions a year and they can’t actually provide an adequate level of service.

And why do we need these for data? Isn’t that why we have wifi? Oh wait, Spint and Verizon won’t put wifi in their phones.

By: bonesb

bonesb — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:37:55 +0000

@ Chuckie – Verizon’s Network Extender is a 1X/2G femtocell, not a “cell booster”, just like the original SPCS Airave. No 3G data. Head over to Howardforums, learn something.

By: alen

alen — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:32:42 +0000

are these things locked down to your phone only or can neighbors with the same carriers make phone calls through it?

personally i don’t see a point for it. I can get voice everywhere with Sprint and AT&T. 3G dead spots for data is an annoyance now and my iphone has wifi for that

By: joe cool

joe cool — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:16:36 +0000

yeah sprint really sucks. they are folding and not putting anything new out. huh

By: LDC_Mobile

LDC_Mobile — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:11:52 +0000

Firstly T-Mo uses UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) provides voice boost only not 3G (but obviously you’re already on wi-fi so why need 3G?)

Secondly, all Sprint phones would benefit as opposed to a specific set of phones.

By: Delayed response boy

Delayed response boy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:07:00 +0000

First, First, FIRST!!!!! Weiners, I am finally first.

By: 2sikk

2sikk — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:00:56 +0000

Whats going to be the Cost??

By: celz

celz — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:55:17 +0000

but that sounds like cell booster not a mini tower

By: Chuckie

Chuckie — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:42:10 +0000

Edit.

Verizon sell a device through customer service call a Cell Booster.

It has to be pluged into a Router of some sort but gives people with almost no service full strength voice and data services.

By: 3 Phones Jugglin

3 Phones Jugglin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:41:05 +0000

Hey, if you can get the product out why not do it? Im sure theres quite a few people that will snatch this up especially those select few that claim they cant get 3G in their middle of nowhere towns.

By: Rio

Rio — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:40:06 +0000

The difference with t-mobile’s @home solution is that they allow you to make/receive phone calls via wifi on your supported phone. Key word is “supported” phone as not all phones work with that @home service.

A femtocell is a microtower meaning it is a mini cell phone tower and can be used with *any* phone for that phone company to provide signal for your phone. Until now data services were limited to 2G (think EDGE) and now am SOOOO happy to hear we can get a 3G version soon!

By: Chuckie

Chuckie — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:36:38 +0000

I too thought that was the point with T-Mobile. Also I think Verizon has something similar to this already???