Wireless Home Networking - Index of
Wireless Home Networking - Index of
Wireless Home Networking - Index of
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254<br />
Part IV: Using a <strong>Wireless</strong> Network<br />
A (future) alternative to FMC<br />
Cell phone service providers and equipment<br />
makers have more tricks than just FMC up their<br />
sleeves when it comes to improving your inhome<br />
service coverage. Another technology<br />
being developed and seriously considered by the<br />
cell phone industry is known as the femtocell.<br />
Simply put, a femtocell is a small (the size <strong>of</strong> a<br />
cable modem) cellular base station that can sit<br />
inside a home or a small business — an even<br />
tinier version <strong>of</strong> the picocells that many cell<br />
phone companies use to improve their coverage<br />
inside shopping malls and convention centers.<br />
A femtocell will connect to your broadband<br />
Ethernet connection (just as a Wi-Fi FMC solution<br />
uses that connection), and your mobile<br />
phone will switch over to the femtocell whenever<br />
it is in range. Where FMC solutions and femtocells<br />
differ is in how your cell phone connection<br />
is transmitted wirelessly in the home. With FMC,<br />
your phone switches over Wi-Fi and then sends<br />
the calls over your broadband connection. With<br />
a femtocell, your phone doesn’t do anything different<br />
than it does anywhere else in the world —<br />
the femtocell looks just like any other cell tower<br />
to the phone, and your phone connects to it<br />
when the femtocell’s signal is stronger than the<br />
outside cell tower’s signal.<br />
This means you don’t need to choose a special<br />
mobile phone to use a femtocell — any<br />
cell phone can work with femtocells. The only<br />
Understanding FMC (Fixed<br />
Mobile Convergence)<br />
limitation is the type <strong>of</strong> cell phone network the<br />
phone is designed to work with (GSM or CDMA).<br />
If you have a CDMA phone (for example, from<br />
Verizon or Sprint), it can connect only to a CDMA<br />
femtocell. GSM phones (AT&T or T-Mobile) can<br />
connect only to GSM femtocells.<br />
Like FMC, femtocells aren’t something that you<br />
can just pick up at the local electronics superstore<br />
and install — they’ll be something that your<br />
cell phone company sells, rents, or gives you to<br />
improve your coverage. An example <strong>of</strong> an early<br />
femtocell is Samsung’s CDMA Ubicell, which can<br />
be seen at the following URL (just search on the<br />
page for femtocell): www.samsung.com/us/<br />
business/telecommunication/.<br />
If you can’t yet get (or don’t want) FMC service<br />
and you’re not willing to wait until femtocells<br />
become available from your mobile phone<br />
provider, consider an in-home cell phone extender.<br />
These devices use an antenna placed outside<br />
your home or in a window to boost the<br />
power <strong>of</strong> incoming phone signals. Essentially a<br />
cell phone extender gives you inside the house<br />
the signal strength you have out in the driveway.<br />
Danny’s been using zBoost from Wi-Ex<br />
(www.wiex.com) and he’s had great results. This<br />
is a cheap ($399) way <strong>of</strong> getting the signal to<br />
reach all the nooks and crannies <strong>of</strong> your home.<br />
Just remember, a cell phone extender won’t help<br />
if you have no signal outside the house.<br />
The next big thing in wireless and VoIP is here now and it’s called fixed mobile<br />
convergence, or FMC. FMC is the combination <strong>of</strong> mobile (cellular) and VoIP<br />
into a single device. With FMC you can use your phone as a cellular phone<br />
anywhere you have coverage, and when you’re in range <strong>of</strong> a Wi-Fi access<br />
point and broadband connection, your phone can automatically switch over<br />
to the Wi-Fi network.