Consumers' interest in femtocells piqued, study finds

If you have a broadband connection and a mobile phone, you’re more likely than not interested in what femtocells have to offer — at least that’s what a study of U.S. consumers conducted by the Femto Forum and Parks Associates found.

Awareness of femtocells in the U.S. is still low — the survey found only 10% of 1100 mobile consumers had heard of them — but once the technology and associated services were explained, 56% of those polled said they found the technology appealing. And of the 10% that had heard of femtocells before, the percentage of those that found them appealing rose to 89%, suggesting that as awareness of the femtos grow so do their attractiveness.

“Femtocells aren’t a niche market,” said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum. “Once consumers are told what the benefits are they’re not just interested, but willing to pay for them.”

Digging deeper, the survey found that the primary interest in femtocells in the U.S. is for home coverage — not a surprise considering the coverage holes in many operators' networks. The other benefit often cited for femtos — reduced rate or unlimited calling and data plans when in the home zone — was attractive to many of the respondents, Saunders said, but it was only one of  many secondary features consumers zeroed in on. Increased battery life due to lower-power signals and faster mobile broadband service were just as high on the list.

The survey also found a high level of interest in femto applications and services that have been proposed by the wireless industry but haven’t yet been commercially deployed. Of those that found femtos appealing, 72% said they would be interested in signing up for a femto service such as a virtual home number, which rings all of a family’s cell phones within the femto zone, or family alerts, which sends text messages when a member of a family enters or leaves the femto zone. Half of those respondents said they’d be willing to pay $5 a month for one of those services or $10 for a bundle of three services.

Saunders said the survey touched upon the potential for femtocells as a platform for carriers to offer personalized, presence and multimedia services.
“There’s an opportunity to offer different kinds of femtocells for different customers,” Saunders said. “Even customers that aren’t coverage-challenged said they were willing to pay for a femtocell.”

In a separate study, Informa found that femtocell deployments among carriers have doubled in the last nine months. There are now 13 commercial launches of femtocells globally, compared to just six in November. Informa expects the femtocell market to grow to 49 million femto access points by 2014, serving 114 million mobile devices.

In the U.S., AT&T (NYSE:T), Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) and Sprint (NYSE:S) have all begun selling femtocells in some form. Even smaller providers have jumped on the femto bandwagon. Cellcom in the Midwest is launching both a consumer and enterprise femto platform, with the aim of offering advanced femto apps as well as enhanced coverage to its customers. This week, Mosaic Telecom in Wisconsin also announced plans to deploy CDMA femtocells by the end of the year.