An announcement that slipped past us at CES last week (possibly because it was so small) was PicoChip's 3G Femtostick chip.
As it sounds, a full femto (allegedly) can now be squashed onto a USB data stick and apparently it's nearly ready to come out of the stocks at a cost of US$50 per unit. AT&T and Intel are working on a 3G base station, according to intomobile...
"Considering most people use their smartphone either at work or while relaxing on their couch, femtocells make sense since they offload traffic that would otherwise have to travel over the cellular network.
Costs have come down dramatically since first brought to market, and now Picochip is saying that in a matter of months they’ll be able to produce a USB femtocell for around $50."
The idea of deploying a femto in an ad-hoc way on a laptop or home computer is intriguing. Maybe this IS the year (finally) that the femto takes off.
via Intomobile
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