Japan’s Softbank Mobile will be giving femtocells for free to its customers. Actually only those customers who are also using the carrier’s ADSL service. I’m not sure whether femtocell is integrated within the same device as ADSL modem/router, I would hope that to be the case, but even if it’s a separate device – I still like the strategy.
Personally I think that selling femtocells as separate devices is the super wrong strategy. What carrier is saying with that is: “Look our network sucks and we can’t provide you with a decent indoor coverage, so you’ll have to buy a separate device that ensures your mobile phone works in your house.”
I can understand there are technical difficulties involved in ensuring mobile networks coverage in residential areas but that doesn’t mean customers should pay for it. The compromise scenario would be to offer free femtocells to any customer who signs a contract to stay on the network for a year or more…
And that’s my rant basically. Kudos to Softbank, again! 🙂
[Via: CellularNews]