3G femtocells will be with us by year end

Link: Netgear promises 3G femtocells by end of year | The Register

According to The Register, Netgear has promised the launch of a 3G femtocell home gateway product by the end of the year.

The femtocell also connects to the home network, enabling content on the phone to be streamed to devices around the home, such as TVs and stereo systems, as well as giving the user access to all the normal 3G services at up to 7.2Mb/sec (assuming their handset supports HSDPA).

Wide scale deployment of femtocells has the potential to make Wi-Fi networks redundant: why use a power-hungry, short-range, technology when the addition of a femtocell provides all the same functionality without the drawbacks?

The only downside is licensing: the radio spectrum required to offer this sort of product is owned by the mobile network operators – so unless there’s a change in the way the frequency space is dished out, the products will have to be sold – and possibly managed – by existing licensed 3G operators.