First Vodafone Femtocell User Review

Vodafone UK has recently launched their first Femtocell product which they call the 'Vodafone Access Gateway'. Andrew Grill over at 'London Calling' is probably one of the first in the UK to get one to test and use at home. An interesting report about clueless shop managers, setup procedure, femto features and performance at home. Thanks Andrew, very insightful

Comments

[Laurent]

Thanks for pointing out this great report.
For the sake of clarity, the vodafone Femto is actually from Alcatel-Lucent collaborating with Sagem.
It again demonstrate that it is not about technology but really about customer support, provisionning and services overall.
I guess vodafone service will get better.

[Laurent]

Supporting my previous email, here is a video about the collaboration between Alcatel-Lucent & Vodafone.
http://blip.tv/file/2306897

[David Boettger]

It's not clear to me what the charges are when using the gateway. From here: http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/latest-deals/gateway-offers it would seem that, other than unlimited data, there is no discount (or, e.g., unlimited calling) when calling from the gateway. So it would seem that gateway users are, in effect, paying Vodafone for the privilege of filling in their cold spots.

[Ali]

Can I move the femtocell from one location to another. Is it possible for vodafone to detect the change in location?

[Martin]

Hi Ali,

good questions but I can't give you the answers to them, you have to ask Andrew.

Kind regards,
Martin

[Mark]

Hi,

The femto can be moved to other locations within the UK and it is up to the customer to inform Vodafone in order to update their records (mainly for location based info provided to the emergency services). If the femto is taken to a different country this is detected by the IP address and it is blocked.