Orange offers extended network coverage
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Orange is to charge customers for extending network coverage into buildings with limited or no coverage, while still billing them for calls carried over their own broadband connection, according to the firm's picocell strategy, announced today.
Pico (or femto) cells offer the opportunity for license-holders to deploy tiny GSM cells. Connected to ADSL lines they can provide low-cost connectivity for any GSM mobile, converting a mobile call to VoIP while taking load off the operator's network.
O2 is trialling femtocells in customers' homes to provide free in-home voice calls and delivery of 3G services such as streaming video and online gaming, without relying on network coverage.
Qualcomm reckons femtocells are the ideal home network, for streaming video around the house and as a direct competitor to home Wi-Fi.
But Orange wants to see companies who have trouble getting coverage in basements or back offices paying to have a picocell fitted and connected to their broadband to provide the coverage they need.
The firm is keen to emphasise that this will be part of a communications deal and the price will be negotiable.
It also doesn't preclude Orange doing all those other exciting things tiny cells make possible, but it does show how Orange is positioning the technology and where it sees the revenue potential. ®
COMMENTS
Femtos as a direct competitor to home Wi-Fi??
Come on Reg, do you see Femtos/Picos as a coverage solution (you start off talking about GSM, meaning Voice) or as some god-box home networking solution?
Surely a Femto is all about getting low-power coverage into the dark spots in buildings,. That means voice, unless you boost the Femto power in the house to get good data rates all around, and miraculously attenuate the signal in you external walls so as not to interfere with your neighbours Femto or the Macro network - a cinch in modern flats, where your neighbour places his the other side of the plasterboard wall to yours, in the mirror-image layout.
According to OfCom's consultation, they suggest they will see the Femtos (broadcasting on the operator's frequency) as part of the network. IF I get a HS phone, and IF all my PCs and devices have HS cards in, then maybe I'll want to use HS between those devices.
So how does the operator let me use his spectrum for my internal comms, and how does Qualcomm expect all the Femto manufacturers to put local switching into the boxes (femto will simply pass on data over the broadband line into the operators network, like any good Base Station should!) when Qualcomm's 3G IPR already threatens to kill the 3G Femto business?
Change provider then!!!
Having worked for an organisation who changed to Orange two years ago following a "Site Survey" for signal strength we were lets say - a little dissapointed to discover that depending on weather, time of day and the pollen count we could not connect from certain parts of the building.
We were a little bemused to be informed by Orange that the survey was not binding and the couldn't guarantee complete coverage at all time - on the surface of it this was a practical statement but interuptions to service persisted each day. Turned out we were right at the edge of their coverage, although their payments department managed to bill us for complete coverage each and every month. 200 phones on one site alone.
A year later with still the same problems we switched to Vodafone (700 phones in total). Orange sales staff did try the old "your area is scheduled to be upgraded" but too little too late.
And back to the point - Orange appear to be charging the customer (again) for failings in their own service. I hope anyone with an Orange contract just move provider as we did and discover not all are like Orange. I may just be on an Orange Sucks campaign but between personal issues with Orange service levels\billing and broadband the only success Orange has had with me is managing to fail in all areas.
The sooner Orange go into liquidation the better.
Money grabbing bar stewards
"..... Orange is positioning the technology and where it sees the revenue potential"
Ignoring completely the fact that the revenue potential is of increased usage from those inaccsessible areas of buildings in the first place.
This is all for Orange's [financial] benefit not the Customer's, getting paid to have one of its own cells installed so that its network coverage can be "improved". As I see it, the only benefit to the Customer is a practical one in that they can continue use of their mobile in-building. Financially the Customer is paying over the odds by taking up an Orange picocell.
But then again, most buildings I know of have land lines which are fine for calling out from, and can be diverted to from the mobile.
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