The lack of a consistent signal inside the office or home means
that users experience dropped calls and slower data speeds. The
answer to this problem seemed to be femtocells. A femtocell is a
small device that looks similar to a router for internet access
that picks up the wireless call and sends it over the user's
broadband network rather than the mobile phone network.
Femtocells were also looked at as a way for mobile network
operators to improve speeds and reduce the overall load on their
networks. The reality is that femtocells have been deployed in
much lower numbers than was predicted by analysts and mobile
providers. ABI Research today issued a notice that it had
reduced the expected number of femtocells that will ship this
year by 55%. The research firm blames the reduction in its
estimates on the fact that mobile operators have been slower to
adopt the technology than expected. ABI now estimates that
350,000 femtocells will have been shipped by the end of the
ABI's Aditya Kaul said, "Even femtocell