Wi-Fi and Consumers or Femtocells and Carrier?

Author: Michael Morgan, Senior Analyst, Mobile Devices

Published: 06 Apr 2009

Carriers must currently choose between femtocells and Wi-Fi if they want to improve indoor and rural coverage. Both technologies have pros and cons. Femtocell consumers can use their regular phones, but must purchase another ‘router’ for their homes. Wi-Fi customers must purchase a phone with Wi-Fi capability as well as have a Wi-Fi router in their homes. While femtocells offer an in-home access point that utilizes licensed spectrum owned by the carriers, femtocell deployments may cause interference with the macro networks. On the other hand, while the spectrum for Wi-Fi access points is unlicensed, other common 2.4 GHz signals in the home may degrade the performance of Wi-Fi-based communications. So the question looms: Which technology will become the next Betamax?

The full text of this Insight is available to subscribers of the Smartphones & Mobile Devices Research Service.

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