Will Femtocells Change Behavior?

According to iLocus, Nokia has found in its most-recent smart phone survey that 35 percent of packet data was consumed on the move, at-home use was 44 percent and in-office use was 21 percent of total.

Overall usage also increased from 6 megabytes a month to 14 megabytes a month.

What will be interesting is to see what happens when appreciable numbers of mobile users have access to femtocells--local transmitters that allow them to use a standard handset with better signal coverage in an indoors setting.

Aside from greater usage because signal quality is better, one wonders if the exposure to high-quality data bandwidth indoors might somehow lead to sustained and permanent changes in use of packet data outside the femtocell or indoors setting.

The other issue is whether users start to rely on mobile handset access in a setting where PCs also have broadband access. What applications or use modes start to become more attractive, even when there is the possibility of using a PC to conduct the same operations?

Of course, the same sort of questions can be asked of dual-mode devices able to switch to Wi-Fi access indoors.

Sprint Launches Airave Femtocell Service

I happen to live in one of the neighborhoods in Denver where Sprint is rolling out its new Airave femtocell network, and i do have mobile service with Sprint (I also use Verizon, T-Mobile and at&t). That doesn't necessarily mean I am going to test it or use it, but I can. The service also is available in some parts of Indianapolis.

Make no mistake: this is a landline replacement service. In my case the incremental cost of the femtocell service, offset by the abandonment of my landline, would save $20 a month or so. That might be an interesting number for lots of consumers.

It makes possible unlimited incoming, outgoing, and long distance calls using any handset Sprint sells and supports. As I have argued before, handset freedom will be vitally important in the fixed-mobile convergence space. Dual-mode phones don't make as much sense to me, for precisely that reason.

Airave vastly improves indoor mobile coverage (something desperately needed in my neigborhood. All you have to do is watch all my neighbors out on their front porches talking on their mobiles.

Airave costs $15 per month for individuals and $30 per month for families, above the existing wireless plan any user has.

The Airave base station costs $49.99. Sprint plans to make the AIRAVE available later this year to customers in the remainder of Denver and Indianapolis, along with Nashville, and to customers nationwide in 2008.

The Samsung-built Airave base station covers approximately 5,000 square feet. Up to three Sprint subscribers can use the AIRAVE simultaneously as long as they are registered with the device.

Airave is Sprint's answer to T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home service. So watch the deployment numbers, when they ultimately are available.