19 Dec
2011
19 Dec
'11
6:58 p.m.
On Dec 19, 2011, at 8:28 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
I'm reminded of the femtocell offerings by cell
phone carriers who spend so much on executive compensation that they don't have the
money to build out their infrastructure enough to support their customer base.
For those who don't know, a femtocell is basically a tiny "cell tower" in
a box about the size of a wireless router. You connect it to your home network, and when
you're at home, your calls go out over your Internet connection, instead of via the
cell carrier's nearest tower. This has the effect of offloading their network, to make
it cheaper to operate, at the expense of a different service that you're already
paying money for to do something else.
It's unbelievably sleazy.
I have a friend who lives in an area with enough rich people that they can't deploy
the cell phone masts ("It looks so ugly! Don't put that in my backyard! Now why
can't I get a signal out here?"). He had to buy a femtocell just to be able to
use his cell phone in his house. It's absurd.
Of course, they don't install the masts in areas where there are too many poor people,
either. I suppose there's an inverse bathtub curve of income vs. cell tower
density...
- Dave