Last month, I wrote about using mobile hotspot solutions to “retrofit” 3G coverage to wifi-enabled devices such as the wifi-only iPad or third-party wifi-equipped e-book readers. It would seem like the ideal solution: not as difficult as tethering, compatible with any wifi-enabled device, and remarkably convenient to wherever a user might be.
However, Kevin C. Tofel reports on GigaOm that sales of personal hotspots such as the MiFi fell 28 percent in 2009 over the previous year, according to a recent Infonetics Research Report. The report does expect sales to return in 2010 and beyond.
One problem Tofel cites is that many people simply don’t know about the MiFi yet. He wonders whether carriers might be intentionally keeping quiet about them, preferring to sell multiple single-use 3G devices rather than one connection that can cover several devices.
Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting on a different kind of wireless connectivity device: AT&T’s “mini-tower” femtocell, a miniature cell phone antenna that plugs into and routes personal cell phone calls through a broadband connection. The article makes prominent mention of the connectivity problems many iPhone users experience.
A number of customers are upset, however, because not only does AT&T want to sell the device for $150, but it will also still charge minutes for calls made over it (or else an extra $20 per month for unlimited calling, in which case the device itself only costs $50) even though the calls are going out through the user’s own broadband. Not surprisingly, customers are upset that AT&T wants to charge more to provide the level service they should have been offering to begin with.
My parents fall into the category of people who would at one point have found a femtocell useful. They live way out in the country, on the fringes of AT&T’s service area, and have to go upstairs to get a good signal. Since they bought the cell phone for its inexpensive long distance capability and cancelled their landline long distance, this was inconvenient.
However, since I showed them they could use their local-only landline plus Google Voice’s bridging service to make free long-distance calls, they have had less need for using their cell phone at home—and they would certainly not have been thrilled to have to pay an extra $150 to use the service for which they were already paying a sizable monthly fee.
AT&T, of course, is currently the only network that carries the iPhone, and also provides service to the Kindle and Nook and will soon provide it to the iPad. All these e-book devices and smartphones have at once attracted people to the network and caused a considerable strain on it. AT&T is planning to spend $8 billion upgrading its network this year.
Wi-Fi Net News suggests that AT&T may start building femtocells into home routers, but that will only help the people who buy their broadband through AT&T. For now, everyone else will have to decide whether it’s worth paying extra to get what they should have had in the first place.
Chris, in a case like your parents’ house, and mine. One attractive solution is a simple booster. I have a zBoost and a directional antenna on my roof. It picks up the distant tower’s signal and rebroadcasts (bidirectionally) it inside the house, providing solid signal for cell phones and my computer’s 3G dongle. The femtocell gadget would be useless for me because I don’t have any broadband signal on which to piggyback the cell service. The total cost was about $300 from repeaters.com and the help of a friendly neighbor to hook the antenna to the chimney.
Thanks, but I’m not sure how a $300 signal booster would be economically better than a $150 femtocell for my parents who’d prefer not to spend any money at all. 🙂
I travel with my iPhone and my company laptop. Since I can’t tether, I recently signed up for Clear’s 4G service and bought a usb modem for the laptop. This saves my company some money vs. the $10+ daily internet charge at many hotels (they reimburse the expense).
Clear has now come out with a 4G MiFi-like device. Plug the usb modem into it and you have a WiFi hotspot with 4G speed. I picked one up yesterday. It will run several hours on battery power. It’s $139, but there is no monthly fee. Now I all need is an iPad…
I don’t think I would ever spend money for a femtocell in my house, but I’m willing to pay for a portable solution.
I have a friend in Austin who has Clearwire, too. I wish it was available in my area!
I don’t get this report. I clicked through and, sure enough, it does report a drop in sales of “mobile routers.”
But the Mifi just came on the market (to rave reviews) in May, 2009. Sprint’s new 3G/4G Overdrive just arrived weeks ago. So how could sales of Mifi’s be down from 2008 when they weren’t even on sale? Makes no sense. What is this category referring to?
Aaron, I asked that very question in the comments to Tofel’s article…and I see the link to it in this article points wrong. Oops. Will go back and fix that. Tofel responded:
Thanks for the clarification but I still think this has to be wrong. Regardless of when Novatel introduced the Mifi, no US consumer could buy one until May, 2009 when both Sprint and Verizon started marketing the heck out of them. And the Cradlepoint was a sort of weird hybrid that got barely any attention. Why would it even count as a mobile router since it lacks the ability to go online without a real mobile broadband card inserted?
It defies belief that mobile hotspot sales were down in 2009 from 2008. Something is amiss. My theory would be that true mobile hotspots like the Mifi are not counted in this category at all — I’ll bet they are lumped in with general mobile broadband modems — and this category exclusively measures the Cradlepoint-type routers. Sales of Cradlepoints no doubt tanked after Mifi arrived.