Femtocells are one of those products that, at least conceptually, look to have disruptive traits. The idea of putting a mini ‘cell tower’ in individual homes and businesses, greatly boosting indoor wireless coverage, certainly could be seen as accelerating ‘cord cutting’ behavior – perhaps in a game changing way. But not so fast.
ABI Research is cutting its forecast on femtocell shipments. ABI now says 55% fewer, from 790,000 units to 350,000 units, will ship in 2009. They also expect 2010 to slowdown. “We expect that deployments in 2010 will pick up but will be slower than expected – our data suggests about a 40% reduction on previous estimates.” Hardly a hyper accelerating trend.
Are consumers rejecting the femtocell proposition of paying for a device to improve coverage and features for a service that maybe they should be getting anyway, as a part of their monthly subscription fee? Femtocells aren’t cheap – they range from $150 to over $200.
I suspect if you just paid $200 for your new whiz bang smartphone, you don’t expect to pay another $150 to get better coverage in your home. By the way, that same smartphone is probably Wi-Fi enabled, allowing customers to use their existing home networks for better data coverage anyway. Data services are driving wireless growth and usage, not voice.
Are femtocells dead? Hardly. But the model will probably have to change. Customers have spoken, and they’re not going to buy femtocells en masse at current cost levels.
i have issues in my home w/ wireless connectiviity both for voice AND DATA (poor coverage does not disciminate) and I would certainly buy a device IF it not only boosted my wireless mobile voice AND DATA, but also served as WiFi access point (and why not a fixed wireless phone also) served by either HSI or FTTH… basically a hi-bandwidth single point of data/voice interconnection in the home… Fem2Cell mfgs. & CSPs need t start looking at the broader picture… I agree w/ the article… I certainly will NOT buy this device for the single purpose of augmenting the crappy coverage provided by wireless service provider…
People would buy them if they were 25% cheaper AND did not add an additional monthly service fee. Carriers need to get over their addiction to monthly fees. Few people will want to pay their carrier EXTRA to essentially help the carrier out by offloading voice and data into an internet connection that the customer owns. Sounds like a sweet deal for carriers all around.