 r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·AT&T DSL Service
 ·row44
| What is the point? There are very few areas where you cannot get a weak signal using an antenna and cell booster to ge a signal in your house.
If you can't get a signal outside your house then you why would you even have a cell phone?
The only benefit to these internet femtocells is if you could use it anywhere you had an internet connection, especially traveling internationally. GPS locking these devices makes them worthless.
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
| gps spoofing however , makes it quite useful  |
|
r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T DSL Service
·row44
1 edit | As soon as I can get one for regular price I will hack it.
Dynamic GPS spoofers are very expensive, I wonder if you can make a mini transmitter with a eeprom that will constantly broadcast a recording of a GPS signal.
Otherwise I am going to try and solder in a serial cable to the internal GPS device and then use one of those free or cheap GPS spoofer softwares that will send out fake NMEA data over a serial port.
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| Actually they can run a code to inject a little range into the buffer unless you disable it , it just feeds the buffer a constant lat long you put in.
With a small random swing don't want them looking to perfect
--
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
|
 CoronaIt's cool, I'm takin it backPremium
join:2000-03-14
Dallas, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to r81984
Depending on how the carrier deploys their product, GPS doesn't necessarily lock down the Femto to the user's home address.
It would merely secure it to an address that can be verified, like for E911 purposes.
YMMV however, that's all up to the carrier.
--
"To be sincere, you don't have to know anything, you just say whatever makes you feel good and spin and smug circles in your tiny fucked up little head, happy as long as you're true to yourself. In other words, Sincerity is bullshit!" -Penn Jillette |
|
r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX | The GPS locks it down to an area where they have an FCC license to broadcast. Thus if you take it out the USA it will not work.
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
CoronaIt's cool, I'm takin it backPremium
join:2000-03-14
Dallas, TX Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
| Agreed, that probably is going to be a factor.
Assuming you can get around that, I wonder how much of a factor long distance internet latency might play a role in Femto performance while in a data or voice session.
The carrier's IP gateway will still ostensibly be in the US somewhere. If someone were to take the Femto to Europe say, and somehow override the GPS, I wonder if latency would be an issue.
--
"To be sincere, you don't have to know anything, you just say whatever makes you feel good and spin and smug circles in your tiny fucked up little head, happy as long as you're true to yourself. In other words, Sincerity is bullshit!" -Penn Jillette |
|
r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T DSL Service
·row44
| The audio for a GSM cell phone is only recorded at 13 kbit/s or less and latency is not really going to perceivable even on a satellite connection. Just in travel time alone to the farthest you could travel on earth your latency would be 101 ms + equipment latency + any satellite latency.
No matter where you are the latency should be under 1 second so it will basically not matter.
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
 aaronwtPremium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
·Verizon FiOS
2 edits | reply to r81984
said by r81984:There are very few areas where you cannot get a weak signal using an antenna and cell booster to ge a signal in your house. If you can't get a signal outside your house then you why would you even have a cell phone? The only benefit to these internet femtocells is if you could use it anywhere you had an internet connection, especially traveling internationally. GPS locking these devices makes them worthless. So I can use it in the car and other places. I am surrounded by hills and in a basement condo so my reception is poor to non exisitent depending on where I am in my condo.
With the Femtocell, I was able to drop my landline and only use my cell phone at home since I now have excellent coverage around the entire building with my Verizon Femtocell.
I have no problem with it using my minutes. I'm glad there is a solution that's easier than messing with a booster. And since I'm on FIOS I also have no bandwidth issues. Not that the 80kbs a phone call on the femtocell uses would even cause a problem.
the cost of the Verizon femtocell was well worth it in my situation. And also allowed me to drop my landline saving me several hundred a year. |
|
Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to Corona
Let's put it this way.
I took a demo unit to South America , I needed to keep my Verizon phone active , It worked great in Brazil Venezuela and Colombia.
Matter of fact , with a wimax modem , and a laptop I was able to fly fish and still be logged into a shell in a boat almost 1 mile into the flats in Santa Marta Colombia, while talking a noc tech through replacing some critical hardware on my vzw phone.
300 ms ping times to the pop where Verizon was grabbing my calls. I had 250 ms pings to miami vpn then between 50 and 100 to the verizon pop where they were taking the traffic.
Not an issue , besides for a tech asking stupid questions about why both power supplies should be shut off to do a motherboard swap 
--
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
|
CoronaIt's cool, I'm takin it backPremium
join:2000-03-14
Dallas, TX | reply to r81984
Is that a 3G voice session bitrate? |
|
|
|
r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T DSL Service
·row44
| reply to aaronwt
said by aaronwt:said by r81984:There are very few areas where you cannot get a weak signal using an antenna and cell booster to ge a signal in your house. If you can't get a signal outside your house then you why would you even have a cell phone? The only benefit to these internet femtocells is if you could use it anywhere you had an internet connection, especially traveling internationally. GPS locking these devices makes them worthless. So I can use it in the car and other places. I am surrounded by hills and in a basement condo so my reception is poor to non exisitent depending on where I am in my condo. With the Femtocell, I was able to drop my landline and only use my cell phone at home since I now have excellent coverage around the entire building with my Verizon Femtocell. I have no problem with it using my minutes. I'm glad there is a solution that's easier than messing with a booster. And since I'm on FIOS I also have no bandwidth issues. Not that the 80kbs a phone call on the femtocell uses would even cause a problem. the cost of the Verizon femtocell was well worth it in my situation. And also allowed me to drop my landline saving me several hundred a year. All I am saying that a booster would have solved your problem and would have cost about the same. Sure you would have to of ran an antenna, but the result would have been the same.
Cell phones have been around a long time so if people wanted cell service they would have a booster already. The only people who would not have boosters are those that have recently moved and did not get around to getting one yet to get a signal in their house.
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T DSL Service
·row44
| reply to Corona
said by Corona:Is that a 3G voice session bitrate? UTMS codec is variable based on link conditions from 1.8 to 12.2 kbit/s
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX | reply to BosstonesOwn
Getting your cell phone to work in another country is the best use of this device.
That is nice that verizon does not gps lock their devices like ATT does.
--
Democrats are not Socialists any more than Republicans are. |
|
aaronwtPremium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| reply to r81984
said by r81984:said by aaronwt:said by r81984:There are very few areas where you cannot get a weak signal using an antenna and cell booster to ge a signal in your house. If you can't get a signal outside your house then you why would you even have a cell phone? The only benefit to these internet femtocells is if you could use it anywhere you had an internet connection, especially traveling internationally. GPS locking these devices makes them worthless. So I can use it in the car and other places. I am surrounded by hills and in a basement condo so my reception is poor to non exisitent depending on where I am in my condo. With the Femtocell, I was able to drop my landline and only use my cell phone at home since I now have excellent coverage around the entire building with my Verizon Femtocell. I have no problem with it using my minutes. I'm glad there is a solution that's easier than messing with a booster. And since I'm on FIOS I also have no bandwidth issues. Not that the 80kbs a phone call on the femtocell uses would even cause a problem. the cost of the Verizon femtocell was well worth it in my situation. And also allowed me to drop my landline saving me several hundred a year. All I am saying that a booster would have solved your problem and would have cost about the same. Sure you would have to of ran an antenna, but the result would have been the same. Cell phones have been around a long time so if people wanted cell service they would have a booster already. The only people who would not have boosters are those that have recently moved and did not get around to getting one yet to get a signal in their house. that is the entire problem, the antenna. To run an antenna is too much work and unsightly. I did try a small booster that worked only within 15 feet, before the Femtocell was available, but even with that it only increased my signal strength by one bar(so I had one or two bars). To have full signal strength I needed a full size antenna outside and high which is unsightly and more expensive, not to mention the cabling that needs to be run.
With the femtocell, I just connected it to one of my existing gigabit ethernet switches, and put the GPS antenna in a window while the femtocell was in a cabinet. Now I get full signal strength anywhere in my condo, and can get a better signal anywhere around the building than I could before the Femtocell.
since I'm surrounded by hills the only way to get a full signal strength is to go to the top of the hill. which is the height the antenna for a booster would need to be.
Which is several feet above the top of my condo unit. |
|
CoronaIt's cool, I'm takin it backPremium
join:2000-03-14
Dallas, TX | reply to r81984
What if GPS lock isn't the only thing being used to ensure the Femto is operating in the correct geography? |
|
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | reply to r81984
said by r81984:There are very few areas where you cannot get a weak signal using an antenna and cell booster to ge a signal in your house. If you can't get a signal outside your house then you why would you even have a cell phone? M2M calling with your friends. Some areas/cliques of people are always one particular carrier. In some areas, its ATT or Verizon. No PCSes. The ATT part might have been a 800 mhz Side A company ATT acquired in the 2000s and had a shit network under the old company, and under ATT to this day. In 1984 when 800 band came out, there were 2 carriers for each area. Still is like that to this day. Side B license was handed to the local Baby Bell/LEC, Side A was handed to an independent, Side A carriers were cheaper than the Side B LECs, which often meant Side As had worse coverage than the more cash laden Side B carriers. Corporate/branding wise, Side A/B means nothing anymore, engineering wise, it can mean alot. The engineering decisions done in the 1980s, can still be felt to this day. |
|
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | reply to r81984
A repeater or booster will work with anyones phone, CDMA and GSM. A femtocell only works with your phone/phone numbers you program in. Your friends phones can be different tech, or different carrier, or not programed in. |
|
| reply to r81984
No the verizon one is actually constrained by gps as well.
just have to beat it |
|
| reply to Corona
proxy ? vpn ? lots of ways around it.beating the gps is the hardest. |
|
