Frequently asked questions

Why would I want a femtocell in my home or office?

Femtocells provide a high quality, high speed signal in your home or office, giving you excellent quality voice calls and fast downloads when you use your mobile phone. Your mobile operator may also offer attractive service bundles for femtocell users.

What if I already have a good mobile phone signal at home – do I still need a femtocell?

Even if you already have good voice coverage, mobile internet services may be slower indoors. More and more people want to use their mobile phones for messaging, web browsing, social networking, video streaming and mobile TV. Femtocells provide you with your own personal mobile broadband signal, which means your mobile phone can access these internet services at high speed.

Your mobile operator may offer you incentives to have a femtocell. Femtocell pricing will vary depending on the country and operator.

You may also be offered additional “femtozone services” that work when your mobile phone is at home.

What might femtozone services look like ?

Femtocells enable all kinds of new services to be created for your mobile phone when it’s at home. Example femtozone services could include:

• Virtual home number (rings all mobile phones currently in the home), allowing families to keep a home number even if they cancel their fixed line phone.
• Get automatic SMS alerts when your kids arrive or depart the home, providing reassurance for working parents.
• Automatic “I’m at home” profile / presence update on social networking websites.
• Automatic back-up of photos and videos from your phone to the web and / or your PC when you arrive at home.
• Automatic podcast reload on your phone when you get home, avoiding the hassle of having to manually synchronise with a PC.

Future generations of femtocells will connect your mobile phone to your home network, allowing you to do many things such as play a slide show of photos from your phone on your TV, stream videos from your Digital Video Recorder to view on your phone, and use your phone to control other devices in the home (e.g. to instruct the Hi-Fi system to play music stored on a home computer or media server).

Here are some further examples of femtocell applications, including a video.

How do I stop my neighbours using my femtocell, and allow my friends?

Femtocell technology includes the capability for customers to control who can use their femtocell. If the mobile network operator enables this feature, it will be easy to use – for example, you might add mobile phone numbers using a web page or SMS message.

Will my femtocell work with phones on any network?

Most femtocells will work with phones from a single network only.

Where can I get a femtocell?

Rather like mobile phones, you may be able to acquire residential or enterprise small cells (usually femtocells) through a variety of shops and online stores, but it will be linked to your mobile phone service. The following table shows the operators currently offering such services. It was last updated February 2012:

How difficult will it be to install a femtocell?

Installation will be simple. In some cases the femtocell will come pre-installed in a home gateway device with other features (for example a DSL modem and Wi-Fi), and you’ll simply activate it via a web page. Alternatively, if you already have a home network you will be able to plug in a standalone femtocell.

If your operator needs to upgrade the software or settings in your femtocell, this will normally happen automatically without you even needing to be aware.

Will I need a new mobile phone?

No. If it’s a 3G femtocell, you will need a 3G mobile phone, but any 3G handset will work. You will not need to install or configure any new software on your phone.

Similarly, a 3G femtocell will work with any 3G-enabled device, including tablets, 3G e-books etc.

What else will I need?

You will need to have a broadband service (e.g. DSL or cable) in the home.

Why wouldn't I just use Wi-Fi on my mobile phone?

Wi-Fi can offer some of the same benefits as femtocells, but most phones in the market today do not have Wi-Fi capabilities. Femtocells require no set-up on the phone, whereas Wi-Fi requires configuration (which can be complex if network security is enabled). Using Wi-Fi may also drain your phone battery faster.

What should I know about femtocells and health?

Consumer health is always a top concern for the mobile industry. This is why Femto Forum members are designing their products to fully comply with the guidelines for human exposure to electromagnetic emissions issued by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and other relevant regulatory authorities. Please see our document Femtocells and Health for further information.

Can I make emergency calls on my femtocell?

Yes. In addition, other people in your home could use your femtocell to make an emergency call without needing your permission. But note that femtocells need power and a working broadband connection. If either of these is not working at the time, then you won’t be able to make emergency calls through your femtocell. You may still be able to make an emergency call from your mobile phone if you have coverage from a mobile network.

Will I need to install the femtocell close to a window?

No. Your femtocell does not require a signal from the outdoor network – it only needs a broadband connection. (One possible exception is in certain countries where the law demands that operators know a very precise location for femtocells, in which case it may be necessary for the femtocell to be placed in a location where it can receive a GPS signal.)

Can I take my femtocell with me when I go on holiday?

Femtocells will normally require authorisation from the network operator if they are moved. This is to ensure that the operator has a license to operate in the new location (typically this will not be the case if you go abroad, for example), and to enable emergency calls to be routed correctly.

Are there any other benefits?

One other benefit of femtocells is that they help your phone battery last longer indoors. This is because your mobile phone works at a lower power when using a signal from a nearby femtocell.