AT&T Testing Femtocells
AT&T Inc. is testing a new service that uses small in-home boxes to boost cellular coverage, with plans to make it available in a trial market next year.
Currently, the No. 1 U.S. wireless provider is testing “femtocells” in employees’ homes with plans to conduct a city-wide test in the second quarter.
Femtocells are small boxes that mimic what cellular towers do beam low-power wireless signals to cell phones and relay signals back to the carrier through the subscriber’s high-speed Internet connection.
"We’re really excited about this," Stankey told investors and analysts at a conference organized by UBS. "I don’t know how you compete in the voice space with someone who has a pristine voice connection in the home through a femtocell."
Last year, Sprint Nextel Corp began marketing femtocells in a few markets, and made them available nationally this summer. The company provides femtocells for voice and low-speed data connections, but Stankey said AT&T is looking at femtocells that provide full cellular broadband, or "3G" speeds.
Other competitors Verizon Wireless are also looking into the option of selling femtocells.
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