3G UbiCell Femtocell Released by Samsung Mobile

Although regarded as some rather unusual, curious devices up until recently, femtocells are starting to become more and more important for the future of mobile communications, with an increasingly higher number of such products arriving in stores. And the latest of this type to make its way into the spotlight is Samsung Mobile's 3G UbiCell Personal CDMA Base Station, a small plug-and-play base station that works with users’ existing mobile phones to provide secure, in-home cellular service over existing public broadband networks.


According to Samsung, what the UbiCell does is practically eliminate the need for a landline phone. With dependable in-home coverage, users will no longer have to pay for separate landline charges for basic features such as long distance, voice mail, caller ID and call waiting. Furthermore, such a gadget will allow carriers to offer differentiated services typical to femtocells like presence and home network, as well as home phone and multi-number ringing.

The 3G UbiCell is very easy to install, since the system is ready to use out of the box without requiring any technical assistance. So, all the users will ever have to do is simply connect the 3G UbiCell to an available Ethernet port on their broadband internet router, plug-in to an AC power outlet and turn it on. After installation, the UbiCell registers with the Network to configure and begin service in a matter of minutes.

As mentioned above, the device also delivers quite a good level of security, featuring built-in authentication and over-the-air encryption inherent to CDMA. IPSec based VPN connectivity to the Carriers network ensures confidentiality and authenticity.

The gadget works on the 3G-CDMA2000 and 1xEV-DO Rev A & 1X networks (800/1900 MHz dual-band) and supports up to eight simultaneous users, which is really OK, especially if we're talking about a home environment.

While no pricing details regarding the UbiCell from Samsung have been provided thus far, we do know that it should arrive on the market at some point over the course of 2010 (not exactly a very clear interval, but that's all we've got).