Verizon launches Network Extender femtocell solution

Burgundy, you’re missing the point. These things require a WAN connection, therefore you ALREADY HAVE an Internet connection, and easy data coverage using wifi. These devices are only needed to expand your voice/sms coverage if you have a bad or no signal.

The Network Extender may cost more but it’s still free to use, the same can’t be said about Airave. Nothing the one can/can’t do is an exact reflection of the other

@ Don Louie

But look at the rationale for the product in the first place:

1) The need is due to Verizon having poor coverage in a particular location (which may be due to building construction interference or to a lack of suitable cell tower coverage), so

2) The solution from Verizon is to charge their customers to pay $250 to buy the Extender, as well as

3) Having the customer pay for broadband service to route the calls in and out, and finally

4) Charging the customers for minutes burned on their wireless contract.

This is considered “free to use”?

The UMA service offered by T-mobile requires only:

1) access to a WiFi connection, whether within one’s home (which would be a consumer-borne cost) or through some public WiFi site (zero cost to the consumer), for which

2) T-mo doesn’t charge the customer for any inbound or outbound calls originating through a UMA connection.

That is much, much closer to the definition of “free to use”. In either case, I bear the cost of a broadband connection within my home (which I would have anyway), but I can also use the service for free outside the home, and the company doesn’t charge me minutes while on a UMA connection. By contrast, the $250 Extender has value only in the site in which it is placed.

Of course, if Verizon phones had WiFi maybe such a thing might be possible, but since the company insists on crippling any technology which would allow the user to circumvent a for-pay service of Verizon (including Bluetooth), there aren’t many options for Verizon customers except to do what the carrier instructs.

does anyone know if this unit can be locked down so that people can potentially steal your enhanced signal since only 3 phones can use it at once.

My signal is mediocre in my home. It’s okay for voice, but data really sucks (at least wirelessly)

I’m disappointed that I can’t use this for 3G data and that it’s only limited to 3 phones (simultaneously). Yeah, not all 5 of us are always on the phone at the same time, but it would at least be nice to have that option for something that uses our Broadband connection and which costs us $250.

Sprint’s and vzw’s can be locked down but I remember reading somewhere that Airave had a problem letting unlocked phones connect to the native network and handing off calls leaving. Don’t know if those issues were fixed, by now the Samsung will have worked out the bugs on the vzw version

Um, you can’t use 99% of “public” wi-fi portals with your T-Mobile phone because they don’t ever browse. So you can’t enter the code you get from the motel to activate the mac through their directed browser. Yes, the phone has a browser, but it encapsulates the ip traffic into UDP packets that get sent to T-Mobile.

Oh, yeah, the implementation on the phone sucks. It has to be reset/restarted every couple hours and you miss calls – or it roams to a local roaming partner’s tower because the tower’s signal is 3 bars and the wi-fi signal is 2 bars and it drops the call.

On the other hand, Sprint’s femtocell stuff just works. For voice, for low speed data. My handset does not even know I have a femtocell, it just uses it.

I know, wi-fi *sounds* better, but it needs to be re-implemented before it is actually useful.

It needs to be pointed out that only the Blackberry works this way. T-Mobile offers several phones that use the wi-fi stuff but only the blackberry uses wi-fi directly to browse. The regular handset phones do all browsing through the wap interface – and all ip is encapsulated into udp packets and sent to a central T-Mobile site which de-encapsulates the packets.

This means, among other things, that you can’t use any wi-fi system that requires a login because you will never see it.

“Um, you can’t use 99% of “public” wi-fi portals with your T-Mobile phone because they don’t ever browse. So you can’t enter the code you get from the motel to activate the mac through their directed browser.”

um.. there’s an option to enter a code when you do connect to an access point. Its in the network setup screen. I’ve done it many times while traveling.

@ Nick

How interesting that my phone hasn’t received your memo. It seems to do just fine. It stays locked into the WiFi signal very well, too. But thanks for your concern, all the same.

On my BB8320 there is an option to not only prioritize wifi vs GSM but to also tell it to ONLY use wifi & ignore any sporadic/intrusive towers.

Has anyone got one of these yet?

If you try the unit you will be a beliver as I am. The unit is dual band and voice quality is great. Verizon taken the lead with the stronger network and unit.

That pretty much echos Airave holders sentiment and w/o the MRC

I used the network extender for 27 days and had nothing but problems!
The unit will sink up with the phone but is only good for voice NO data!
If it sinks up for voice calls it is still looking for the evdo signal if it is able to connect to the evdo signal it will drop the network extender signal. I live up in the hill the signal is week at best. After several calls to Verizon they said they were aware of the constant switching problem and had no fix at this time. I am sending the unit back until the extender can handle data as well as voice. They did say that if I turned off the data portion of my blackberry it would work, so if I turn off half of my phones features my $250.00 extender will work! No thank you