Vodafone - Thursday, June 25, 2009 2:28 - 3 Comments

Vodafone’s femtocell won’t improve mobile broadband

Vodafone UK have just announced the availability of thier new “3G coverage booster”, aka a 3G femtocell.  This little box of tricks plugs into your home broadband connection and routes calls over the internet and onto Voda’s network.  This is welcome news for those of us with 3G handsets who are unable to access data services or make reliable voice calls due to poor coverage.

However, it’s not great news for mobile broadband users.  Although it’s unclear if the femtocell supports higher speed technology (HSDPA), the fact that it routes the data over your ADSL connection should be enough reason to rule it out.  If you’ve got ADSL at home, why bother using your mobile broadband allowance when fixed line is far cheaper and faster?