Late last week when Sprint-Nextel announced their 3G femtocell, I was taken back.  Sprint decided to change its strategy from charging for femtocells access to instead giving these devices away for free.  Providing free femtocells was the viewpoint I believed was most beneficial for wireless carriers when I discussed this topic in depth in my femtocell research paper.  When the retention of a subscriber cost along with the cost due to additional mobile usage is factored into the equation, in many situations the cost savings to a wireless carriers easily pays for the femtocell hardware.  While Sprint-Nextel probably didn’t use my research, it is good to know that others agree with my findings.  Keeping with similar viewpoints, a recent survey on the Wireless Industry website, FierceWireless.com, asked viewers which technology they believed would be used to offload data traffic in the future.  In my paper I argued that Wi-Fi offloading was the ideal solution once 4G networks were launched, and that femtocells were only a temporarily solution due to their complexity and cost.  Only 24% of respondents believed that femtocells were the solution, further bolstering my findings in my paper.  Until 4G networks are widespread, femtocells are the solution and it will be interesting if other wireless carriers follow in Sprint’s footsteps.

To receive my master’s degree from RIT, I must either complete a project or a thesis.  I have decided to go the project route as this will allow me some extra credit hours to work on an independent study implementing a MPLS backbone in the lab.  After careful consideration of a variety of topics that I find interesting, I have decided to investigate the issue of limited spectrum for the wireless telecommunications industry.  Specifically I will be researching and writing about the use of femtocells in expanding the coverage, capacity, and speed of wireless provider’s networks.  Femtocells are miniature cell sites targeted for homes and small businesses where existing cellular coverage is lacking.  These devices could drastically change how wireless providers operate their networks and this is what I will be investigating in my master’s project.

Femtocell Project Outline & Proposal