Vodafone Sure Signal vs T-Mobile Cel-Fi vs Orange UMA vs Birchills Telecom Connect
Posted by Birchills Telecom on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 @ 04:42 AM
There are an increasing number of options to resolve the problem
of mobile coverage black spots in homes and businesses. Orange tells us that “one in five UK mobile phone users has a problem with their signal at home”. So since there are 80 million mobiles out there means that 16 million have a problem with their home signal. That’s a lot.
Vodafone have their heavily promoted Sure Signal service which uses a femtocell to connect the mobile to broadband. A femtocell is a wireless access point that improves cellular reception inside a home or office building. A mobile call started in an office with a femtocell starts at the handset is sent to the femtocell and from there through the broadband connection, when it ends up back on the mobile network.
This is an elegant and well engineered solution that is available now. There is little criticism of this service on functionality grounds but there is a lot on economic grounds. People ask why they should pay for functionality that they should have any way.
O2 trialled a similar solution in 2007-8 but clearly concluded that it didn’t work for them and have no current offering.
While Vodafone has the largest offering so far, nine other operators worldwide now offer femtocells – AT&T, SFR, China Unicom, DoCoMo, Softbank, Optimus, StarHub, Sprint and Verizon. More than 60 other telecoms operators are trialling femtocells, many with plans to launch this year.
So femtocells are shifting from a great idea to a reality. In its recent revision of market figures, ABI forecasts that by 2014 volumes will be hitting 40 million units per annum, while Infonetics predicts a more bullish 69 million.
Another option currently is being trialled in the UK by T-Mobile employs a device called Cel-Fi from a company Nextivity. It is effectively a repeater solution consisting of two units: one of which locks onto the signal and transmits it wirelessly to a unit in a black spot which then retransmits it. The device seems to have been successfully trialled in Holland and is clearly headed to the UK. There is currently no price plan but they are giving away units to deserving large customers.
There are also a number of independent companies offering repeater solutions which seem to break the law. They break the law because they use the same part of the radio spectrum that the mobile companies paid so much for. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these solutions don’t actually work very well since they are simply trying to rebroadcast and amplify a very poor signal.
Orange is now advertising their UMA service for business phone systems widely. The UMA initials stand for unlicensed mobile access. The technology senses when you’re at home and connects your phone to the Orange network through your home Wi-Fi. You need a special mobile that is UMA enabled – most Blackberrys are for example. The nice thing about the technology is that there is no extra cost – if you discount the extra bandwidth you are giving to Orange. The bad thing is that it doesn’t work very well and Orange goes out of its way on their website to disclaim everything with comments such as:
"Boost mobile signal at home with UMA technology" is subject to the limitations of your Wi-Fi network. Performance may be affected by the construction of the building it is used in, local interference from other radio products, the number of devices connected to the network and the data activity on the network.” Boost mobile signal at home with UMA technology" is further subject to the limitations of your broadband connection. Performance may be affected by your distance from the telephone exchange, the number of devices connected, and the quantity of data being transferred across the connection”
Birchills Telecom has tried to implement similar business phone system solutions using Wi-Fi with smart mobile phones using their networking capability. If you search the web you will find plenty of programs which claim to do just this, Fring being the most famous. We tried the solution and concluded that the reliance on a rock steady Wi-Fi signal made it too unreliable to use and certainly we will not be offering this solution to our customers.
There is another elegant solution which is Birchills Telecom
Connect using IP DECT phones. You simply divert all incoming calls to your IP DECT system. This allows you to wander around your workspace carrying your phone using a land line number and making crystal clear calls with all of the functionality of a Pbx including call recording, and IVR. If you implement the “follow me” functionality then when you are out and about you can still receive your landline calls and make mobile calls. The cost of calls when you are in the office is massively reduced because you are using Birchills Telecom VoIP and you look and sound more professional than relying on a mobile network.