 NY TelPremium
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY
kudos:3
 ·AT&T CallVantage
4 edits | Good for everyone - Except Landline Providers This will accelerate the demise of facilities based landlines which is going to happen anyway.
Now users can get "5 bars" in their homes and use their cell phones as their primary line. If they couple this with some formula for discounted or free access for not using the cell towers, you'll have a winning combination.
I know not all carriers are going to see it this way but it just makes sense. They save on having to put up towers in rural areas or suburban areas where reception is spotty and they attract and retain others by offering this service option to their current and future subscribers.
Perhaps I am stating the obvious but it is a Saturday and it is slow..... |
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EPS
join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA | What you'll probably see is an uptrend in naked DSL costs... or perhaps more emphasis on DSL+Cellphone bundling from those companies who provide both. |
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| reply to NY Tel
It makes sense from a telco perspective because it gives you service in your home, and they don't ever have to build out their network any further, to offer "real" coverage. It's a cop out! |
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NY TelPremium
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY
kudos:3 Reviews:
·AT&T CallVantage
| said by mike12806:It makes sense from a telco perspective because it gives you service in your home, and they don't ever have to build out their network any further, to offer "real" coverage. It's a cop out! Well I look at it in a different way - it lets me the user guarantee that I have great reception in my home with the assumption that they provide basic acceptable coverage (outside) in the true sense of cellular technology which is overlapping concentric "circles" of signals.
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"I chose and my world was shaken, So what?
The choice may have been mistaken-The choosing was not,
You have to move on." |
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1 edit | Your perspective hinges on the fact that if there was to be widespread femtocell adoption, carries would still invest in new towers and improved coverage. That is something neither of us can predict. The other thing is what about people who switch carriers? Will Sprint take the box back if you decide to drop them? Are there contracts with this service, or is it contract free like their WiMax service?
For your average telco subscriber who doesn't know what VOIP is, doesn't know the difference between GSM/CDMA/Iden, and can barely configure their home WiFi, are they going to see a value and neccesity in this, or are they going to be wooed by the simplicity of a "triple play" package from Comcast, ATT, or Verizon? Sprint needs to be able to convince people that they need this, or market it as home phone replacement! |
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NY TelPremium
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY
kudos:3 Reviews:
·AT&T CallVantage
| We won't know until it happens. My guess is that the majority)of the average users will take the "easiest" way out, be it - triple play etc. but the market will decide.
Hey - who knows but femtocells could be the next Betamax  |
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| It's too bad something like T-Mobile's UMA, which uses wi-fi, can't be integrated at the phone level, thereby allowing the phone to use any wifi network as it's "backhaul". That would eliminate the need for femtocell hardware or the UMA router that T-Mobile provides. (Most) homes already have wifi, right? |
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said by mike12806:It makes sense from a telco perspective because it gives you service in your home, and they don't ever have to build out their network any further, to offer "real" coverage. It's a cop out! Thank you. Why should I shell out cash to pick up the slack for the cell phone company? Femto service is just a way for providers to offload their costs of dealing with network coverage gaps entirely on to the customer.
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Eleven years of carrying The Clue Bat... |
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| reply to NY Tel
LOL, there are still great swaths of the US that do not have cellular coverage. I know it's hard for urban dwellers to imagine, but it's true. Having lived in the mid-Atlantic area for decades, I can see how your perspective is shaped by the huge mass of crammed humanity in that region. Head west and get off the interstates and you're going to find something you're not familiar with--no bars whatsoever on your cell phone. Femtocell will not help in these areas. One town in my county, which is close to the Canadian border and has absolutely no cellular signals, has tried everything to get a cellular carrier to use the spectrum they own in the area to build at least one tower. They even tried to get Homeland Security interested since federal agents patrolling that border area are limited to radio communications only. They were unsuccessful. And there are real human consequences with no cellular coverage--the same year everyone focused on the CNET author's tragic plight in Oregon, a mother visiting her son at a boarding school in the town I mentioned got lost, made a wrong turn on a forest service road and got stuck in snow. She and her son died of hypothermia before they could be found. She had her cellphone with her, but there were just no signals.
Before landlines can be dumped, there needs to be a national discussion about the national security implications. Landlines provide the links to areas that profit-driven telcos and cellular companies don't want to touch now. (Yes, when ITT was the big monopoly, they had to put in infrastructure everywhere--they got breaks from the government to compensate them, mainly monopoly status.) You may not live in an under or non-served area, but guess what, in March of this year, the Census Bureau release data showing that rural areas are seeing higher growth rates while many regions of the extremely-dense Northeastern corridor are losing population. (Although, granted it's so over-crowded back east that it may be hard to notice a decline.) There is speculation that immigration patterns are partially responsible for the changing demographic trends. What ever the reason, we must retain connectivity throughout all regions of the country before there's ever talk of dumping landlines totally. That's going to require the government to step up to the plate somehow and dictate coverage, even if it has to become part of the licensing process. |
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 tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Saint Clair Shores, MI | reply to NY Tel
said by NY Tel:This will accelerate the demise of facilities based landlines which is going to happen anyway. Now users can get "5 bars" in their homes and use their cell phones as their primary line. If they couple this with some formula for discounted or free access for not using the cell towers, you'll have a winning combination. I know not all carriers are going to see it this way but it just makes sense. They save on having to put up towers in rural areas or suburban areas where reception is spotty and they attract and retain others by offering this service option to their current and future subscribers. Perhaps I am stating the obvious but it is a Saturday and it is slow..... Now would be a good time to buy stock in APC or other UPS makers.. Because if people do what you say, there will be MANY idiots who will do this and at the first power outage, go crying to Sprint, TM, VZW and others because of the "down" time. They will be marketed just like cell phones have for years and give people a FALSE sense of security, till the lights go out..  |
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| Haven't we already gone through this debacle with VOIP and the busy or no-answer 911 calls?? I think there is legislation in place that regulates this. |
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 NOCManMacChatterPremium
join:2004-09-30
Colorado Springs, CO | reply to voipdabbler
I know it's not the solution you want to hear, but the city is free to put up it's own tower, and interface with the telephone companies. You'd make money off roaming charges.
Eventually one company or the other gets tired of it, and buys the tower and keeps the service going. |
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NY TelPremium
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY
kudos:3 Reviews:
·AT&T CallVantage
| reply to voipdabbler
said by voipdabbler:LOL, there are still great swaths of the US that do not have cellular coverage. I know it's hard for urban dwellers to imagine, but it's true. Having lived in the mid-Atlantic area for decades, I can see how your perspective is shaped by the huge mass of crammed humanity in that region. Head west and get off the interstates and you're going to find something you're not familiar with--no bars whatsoever on your cell phone. Femtocell will not help in these areas. 2 comments:
1. That's why I choose to live with the crammed mass of humanity on my 2 acre postage stamp of piece of property;
2. So the femtocell will allow you to have cell service in your home Just don't go out with the tumblin tumbleweeds.
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"I chose and my world was shaken, So what?
The choice may have been mistaken-The choosing was not,
You have to move on." |
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| reply to NY Tel
said by NY Tel:Perhaps I am stating the obvious but it is a Saturday and it is slow..... was slow at work too |
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 PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | reply to mike12806
said by mike12806:It's too bad something like T-Mobile's UMA, which uses wi-fi, can't be integrated at the phone level, thereby allowing the phone to use any wifi network as it's "backhaul". That would eliminate the need for femtocell hardware or the UMA router that T-Mobile provides. (Most) homes already have wifi, right? You haven't studied T-mo's UMA service very well. T-mo's UMA phones CAN use any wi-fi network. You don't HAVE to use their special router, they only provide it for convenience. I've had T-mo's UMA service for a year and a half, and it works fine on my Linksys running DD-WRT. Works great at my friends' houses too. If the wi-fi is secure, I just get the key from the friend and type it into the phone. |
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PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | reply to NOCMan
said by NOCMan:I know it's not the solution you want to hear, but the city is free to put up it's own tower, and interface with the telephone companies. You'd make money off roaming charges. Actually, that sounds to me like the perfect solution. It may not provide great prices or competition, but expensive service is better than no service at all (HughesNet, anyone?). |
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Well, it's a town not a city so they don't have flexibility in their budget, especially since they're in a county that's located in the middle of a national forest and the largest landowner, Uncle Sam, doesn't pay any property tax by virtue of sovereign immunity. ( Private land owners in their county only make up 8-10 percent of land holdings, but must pay all the costs for county services.) Furthermore, the spectrum is already owned by one of the major carriers, so they'd have to work out an agreement, and to date, the carrier who owns the spectrum has shown no interest in talking to the town about anything. (The spectrum auctions haven't been that well thought out, since the issue of providing actual service within certain density zones or less densely-populated regions near our southern or norther borders hasn't been addressed.) Thank goodness when the original infrastructure for POTS was built the government actually regulated industry and demanded the infrastructure be built out to serve many communities. (Yes, they gave concessions, namely monopoly status, but it was a compromise that worked to everyone's benefit.) |
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tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Saint Clair Shores, MI | reply to mike12806
said by mike12806:Haven't we already gone through this debacle with VOIP and the busy or no-answer 911 calls?? I think there is legislation in place that regulates this. Like what? I know for fact that cell service IS NOT regulated. They have already tried to FORCE wireless providers to install gensets at cells sites. Not just a few, but ALL. There are GOLDEN sites where they have power backup other then batteries. But as we experienced in Michigan a few years ago, after about 4-8 hrs, most cells go dead. Generators are deployed to recharge but they can't be everywhere at once. So, due to the cost, congress backed off. SO, like I said, put your trust in the reliability of your cell phone and service and maybe people deserve to suffer a tragic event to teach them just what cell phones REALLY are. CO's have backup power and fuel for days of no power. Something people need to REALLY think about. Joe Public, who is single and has a cell, could care less. But a person like me, who has 3 kids at home and went through not only having VoIP which failed the wife test and safety test (always down.. sunrocket and voice eclipse), I went back to pots. Yes, I have 5 cell phones in my household I also have a pots line and comcast phone service. The ONLY service I can say I trust is the AT&T pots line. I don't trust my cell phone as far as I can throw it. nuff said.  |
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