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Femtocell trial: first impressions

Well, it works, I can make calls in my home and both mobile phones have been registered - although it took a couple of calls to get that sorted out. And I never received my confirmation SMS...

But there is one very worrying development. When my femtocell is on, my WiFi network does not work properly. The signal becomes very weak and I can't always get on the Internet. This is resolved by unplugging the femtocell...

So what's at fault here? My WiFi network, or the femtocell? I did assume the two would not interfere with one another but this is too much of a coincidence to ignore. What can I do? I have no control over where they are located as the broadband router has to be connected to both...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very informative blog for telecom folks.

Unknown said...

Interference possibility is very little between 2 technologies, I would simply advise you to change location of one of your devices to be sure.

Runnin' Rik said...

Wifi and 3G indeed create interference. At Thomson, we had to do some real smart engineering in our Integrated Femtocell (DSL Modem and Wifi router and 3G Femtocell in 1 device).
BTW, I presume you are using Wifi 11b and/or 11g, as this is in the 2,4 Ghz fequency range and thus closer to the 2,1 Ghz range of 3G. Using Wifi 11n, that is at around 5 Ghz might solve or decrease the issue anyway.