Mobile phone coverage gets bigger and smaller. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. If you haven't heard of technology called femtocells, chances are you will in the not too distant future. Using a small box...about the size of a cable modem....femtocells can give you top notch mobile service in your home ....and route the calls to and from your phone...over the Internet. RadioFrame Networks is among the companies building femtocell equipment. CEO Jeff Brown...
"Essentially what it does is, you can take it home and plug it into your cable modem or your DSL connection and it goes back into the operator's network. It could be one of your cell phone operators. And attaches itself there. And then it basically provides cellular coverage inside your home. So, it does a couple things. It can remove all those places you can't use your cell phone in your house and give you great coverage that way. As well as give the opportunity for the operator or your carrier to bill you in a different way for those kinds of calls. So you might think of a flat rate type service."
RadioFrame has been working with the carriers to bring the cost of the femtocell equipment down to a hundred dollars or less for subscribers. How soon before you can buy it?
"You should be able to see it from the operators in the first or second quarter of '09."
Brown says every major mobile operator worldwide is pursuing a femto type solution. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.