I beg to disagree. While it is true, as you say, that only 18% of cell phones now have WiFi, this percentage could easily be increased to 100% at very little cost in new handsets sold. A WiFi chip can cost less than $2, which compares to approximately $200 for a Femtocell, a 100x difference. Perhaps even more importantly, however, is that many households are multi-carrier, requiring multiple Femtocells. Perhaps the household which has phones from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and others don't want to have yet another box with antennas, let alone 2 or 3. The same may be true about businesses. In the case of WiFi, it utilizes what you've already got. In the meantime, phones churn on average once a year, so after 1 year, one could expect (100%-18%/2 = 59%) of phones to be WiFi capable. Lastly, some studies appear to suggest that old phones, while theoretically able to talk to a Femtocell, may not do so well. For this reason, the industry started talking about "Femto-optimized" phones, which pulls the rug from under most of the Femtocell argument to begin with. One more thing: Carrier-specific femtocells will hurt the consumer because they won't work abroad, where I am now saving $100+ day when traveling, thanks to UMA/WiFi.
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I beg to disagree. While it is true, as you say, that only 18% of cell phones now have WiFi, this percentage could easily be increased to 100% at very little cost in new handsets sold. A WiFi chip can cost less than $2, which compares to approximately $200 for a Femtocell, a 100x difference. Perhaps even more importantly, however, is that many households are multi-carrier, requiring multiple Femtocells. Perhaps the household which has phones from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and others don't want to have yet another box with antennas, let alone 2 or 3. The same may be true about businesses. In the case of WiFi, it utilizes what you've already got. In the meantime, phones churn on average once a year, so after 1 year, one could expect (100%-18%/2 = 59%) of phones to be WiFi capable. Lastly, some studies appear to suggest that old phones, while theoretically able to talk to a Femtocell, may not do so well. For this reason, the industry started talking about "Femto-optimized" phones, which pulls the rug from under most of the Femtocell argument to begin with. One more thing: Carrier-specific femtocells will hurt the consumer because they won't work abroad, where I am now saving $100+ day when traveling, thanks to UMA/WiFi.