Glenn Fleishman reports for TidBITS on a new doodad from AT&T, the 3G Microcell, which offers to connect to your home network connection and then make a little bubble of 3G voice and data coverage right there to the house. You get better coverage (or, in some cases, you get coverage), and meanwhile:
Carriers love femtocells because they shift traffic (and the expense of moving calls and data) from their expensive-to-operate, capital-intensive cellular networks to cheap broadband – broadband that the customer has installed and paid for separately.
That’s all well and good, but why in the hell does it cost the consumer anything? Apparently the 3G MicroCell (this is what it looks like; it’s pretty clearly the nefarious output of the Drax Enterprise Corporation) will cost $150, but that “AT&T will provide a $100 rebate for customers who sign up for a calling plan,” and but users on calling plans will get unlimited calls (placed through it) for the low-low price of $10 a month. Apparently the other carriers have like devices and offer broadly similar plans. The question: Why? Putative MicroCell users can get unlimited calls through their requisite pre-existing home network (without any femtocell attached) for the low-low price of $0 (though, admittedly, not in glorious 3G MODE!). And remember, these folks are (likely) already paying AT&T to insufficiently cover their home…this is most likely why they might be interested in the MicroCell in the first place! So: pay me not to cover your home, pay me some more so that you can personally provide said coverage for your home, then pay me a bit more per month to use said coverage that you are providing to your own home. Furthermore, said paying users are providing a carrier with extra connectivity. If lots of people on their (presumably troublesome) block did so, you can imagine said carrier’s service in said troublesome area improving for everyone. And it costs them nothing. Probably less than nothing as, just like the article notes, you’re shifting traffic onto people’s own networks and off the carrier’s; plus they’re winning hearts and minds through the magic of improved service, and getting paid by the participating subset of end-users to do so. You’d think they would be giving these doodads away just for coming by the store. But, once again, we have run into a plain example of America’s mobile industry mission statement:
Never miss a chance to screw your customer.
If we can get these idiots to run our networks for us, charge them for the privilege, and (best of all) silently shift them onto the inevitable dumb pipes while we’re doing it, so much the better. Later, we’ll figure out a way to charge them for providing access to and across their own home network; but we’ll let them get good and used to the improved signal first…oh, and texting over a MicroCell will cost, uh, $30.
Lemkin 