 swintecPremium,VIP
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME
kudos:3
 ·RapidVPS
 ·Sprint Mobile Br..
 ·VoicePulse
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to gridlocked
Re: If its not Free, I'm not going to have it. said by gridlocked:The wireless & back haul sections of the cell network are where the bottlenecks take place and these take the traffic off those freeing up resources and saving carriers money. said by swintec:Do you realize you are still on the cell network? There is equipment at the other end handling the femtocell devices, so while yes, you are off the towers in your area, you are connected to a femtocell and the associated equipment at the other end. There is maintenance and costs for that as well. You don't think there is backhaul on the other end of the femtocell? Calls still have to be terminated. Switches are still used. Femtocell equipment still has to be maintained. In at least Sprints case, a separate tech support department had to be created and now paid on a regular basis.
Not one carrier has been pushing these as an all out replacement for anyone and everyone. Most don't even mention them unless you mention signal issues at your home.
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Still, femtocells basically turn a wireless provider into a VoIP provider that uses proprietary technology to connect their phones to the VoIP base station. So their costs, while they don't disappear, go WAY down. |
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swintecPremium,VIP
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME
kudos:3 Reviews:
·RapidVPS
·Sprint Mobile Br..
·VoicePulse
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by iansltx:So their costs, while they don't disappear, go WAY down. By how much do they go down? Also, since you are privy to costs of calls using both types of systems, how much does a 5 minute call to a POTS line using your cell phone and a normal tower cost, and how much does that same call cost while connected to a femtocell (please figure in the costs of the equipment it is being routed through).
You also somewhat proved my point, yes it turns them into VoIP providers, but do you know of any VoIP providers that provide unlimited outgoing minutes for nothing? Exactly. We all know why they don't, they have a lot of equipment to support and maintain, not to mention to pay termination costs. Did you expect cell companies to design and implement VoIP systems (with much more robust ATA's at that) and allow customers to make calls on them, all for nothing?
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| You're forgetting that AT&T is already getting $40+ per month (or $10+ per month on a family add-a-line) for service. So they're getting paid for the infrastrucure.
An unlimited cellular plan (voice) is now hovering around $40 per month. Of course this is Verizon and not AT&T but the point stands.
VoIP has a premium of about $10 per month between minute-limited and unlimited service. There are VoIP providers that have unlimited service for under $20 per month.
As such, my estimate is that unlimited calling on femtocell pricing should be at most $10 per line for any cellular provider. Again, the $10 is a marginal cost; AT&T is already getting at least $40 per month from you for a contract plan, probably a good bit more.
For added coverage, the femtocell should be offered for free as a retention tool, or as a monthly charge or upfront purchase for ormal customers. This is in alignment with normal billing practices for extra features. The $5 per month or so would be simply for rental of the device, not per se as an addon to the person's cellular plan.On the buying side of things, the 'cell should probably be subsidized so its price is in the $100-$125 range or people won't pick it up.
On the data side of things, the femtocell should allow for unlimited data if the connection just dumps onto a customer's regular network. If there's a VPN tunnel involved even for data I can understand why this wouldn't be the case, but even then data allotments should be increased because AT&T doesn't have to spend any money between the consumer and their own backbone network to get traffic to where it needs to go. Even then pricing is about $5 per Mbit at most, or a few cents per GB... |
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| reply to swintec
I sure do. Google voice.
Magic Jack is $20/year though so I suppose $3/mo is fair. Considering I am not tying up their network it seems very fair |
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| reply to swintec
Once that call hits your isp infrastructure its routed to the nearest AT&T POP and off and running. No different at that point than a Vonage call. Does Vonage have backhaul?
I can see it now you get home from work and start making calls over the femtocell but go over your minutes for the month and they start to bill you the overage at say 50 cents a minute for calls.
For a carrier that won't allow free voip apps to be used on the Iphone they are quick to use someone else's infrastructure for their purposes. This is a good example to use for Network Neutrality on cell networks.
Perhaps ISP's should begin blocking Femtocell transmissions.
said by swintec  You don't think there is backhaul on the other end of the femtocell? Calls still have to be terminated. Switches are still used. Femtocell equipment still has to be maintained. In at least Sprints case, a separate tech support department had to be created and now paid on a regular basis.
Not one carrier has been pushing these as an all out replacement for anyone and everyone. Most don't even mention them unless you mention signal issues at your home.
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