Anthony Doesburg: Nice sales pitch - shame about the coverage

Photo / Paul Estcourt

Now that we have three cellphone networks - two-and-a-bit, actually - the added competition is already working its magic on call costs. The newcomer, 2degrees, arrived on the scene at the start of the month with very keen pricing. What it doesn't have is an extensive network.

By the end of the year, 2degrees aims to install 500 cell sites in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, covering 47 per cent of the population. So far 438 of those sites are in operation.

Yet just like Vodafone, 2degrees is able to claim its service reaches "97 per cent of the places that Kiwis like to live, work and play" because where its network doesn't go, it borrows its rival's. Telecom's XT network, injecting a more serious note, "covers 97 per cent of the places where New Zealanders live and work".

How they arrive at that figure is a mystery; I seem to have an uncanny knack for finding the 3 per cent of places that Vodafone doesn't cover, and plenty of other people tell me they are similarly blessed.

It would be a blessing if we hadn't been trained by cellphone companies to be so reliant on our phones that we feel semi-helpless when we can't take or make calls. As more of us use them to send and receive email and surf the web, our reliance is growing.

Vodafone has a splendid map on its site showing coverage of its voice, 3G Broadband and 3G Broadband Extended networks, in vivid colour. What's instantly apparent is that nothing like 97 per cent of the New Zealand landmass is covered - perhaps a third is. You'll only get coverage on Stewart Island if a stiff northerly blows some radio waves over from Bluff.

And that's voice coverage. The 3G Broadband picture is much less bright. The three main cities are covered, and a couple of dozen smaller centres and tourist spots. Bad luck if you're living, working or playing in Wanaka, though.

3G Broadband Extended uses a different frequency from 3G Broadband - 900 megahertz as opposed to 2100 megahertz - and pretty much matches Vodafone's voice coverage. But to get the benefit of it requires a 900MHz device - which rules the coverage out even the new incarnation of Apple's iPhone.

All of which is a long-winded introduction to the femtocell, a new technology which a cynic might see as a way for network operators to put the cost of extending coverage on to customers.

Alcatel-Lucent, a big Telecom supplier, demonstrated a femtocell in Auckland last month, trotting out lots of numbers to support its case that this was more than a solution in search of a problem.

David Swift, an Alcatel-Lucent femtocell marketer from Britain, said a survey of 800 mobile phone users in the US, Britain, Singapore, Germany and Taiwan found nearly a third wanted better coverage. Chances are the figure would be higher here.

Further, Swift said, half of mobile phone calls are made within homes and another 30 per cent within buildings, where cellphone signals can be weak.

A femtocell, a low-power cell site, could improve indoor reception and extend mobility to the supposed 3 per cent of the country where we can't live, work and play with our cellphones because there's no cell tower nearby.

There's a catch, though. In Britain, where Vodafone is providing services over femtocells, the subscriber pays for the device - either £160 ($397) to buy it, or a monthly rental of £5.

And there's another catch. When Vodafone or Telecom or 2degrees installs a cell tower, it meets the cost of connecting the tower to its network. If you or I buy a femtocell, we need to have a broadband internet connection to plug it into.

In other words, the cellular network infrastructure cost is being handed to the subscriber. It's sounding like a good proposition for network operators.

What's in it for you and me? If we happen to live where there's no cellular coverage and little prospect of it ever eventuating, we'd be able to make and receive mobile calls within about 50m of the femtocell.

The trouble is, being too remote for cellular service often coincides with being too remote for broadband, the essential ingredient for a femtocell. So where does that leave you?

How about with a landline and cordless handset that lets you roam around as much of your property as the femtocell-connected mobile would?

Femtocells look too much like a way for Vodafone and the rest to get us to patch up their holey networks. Dare we hope that the arrival of 2degrees might lead not just to better prices, but improved coverage too?

Femtocells

What they are: Low-powered cell sites that operate within and around a building.

Advantages: Better indoor reception; may allow cellphones to be used where there is no coverage at present.

But: Cost of the device; needs to be plugged into a broadband network.

Anthony Doesburg is an Auckland technology journalist.