I have read a lot of comments to the various tech articles wondering what the point of these devices is and why anybody would ever pay for one. Aren't you already paying for wireless? Shouldn't the cell phone company pay you to basically host a tower through your broadband connection?
The people who write those comments will never be able to understand why within minutes of hearing that Verizon was offering a femtocell I had my credit card out and their web site in my browser. You can't understand unless you too have no cell service at your home. I don't mean just one or two bars, I mean no service at my home for six years. I'll leave the inconvenience of that to your imagination.
On to the device. Basically it looks like a modern home router. Good long power cord with a brick. 4 wild blue lights. Stick antenna in the back, along with ethernet and power. There's a port that looks like HDMI hid under the base, with no explanation for what it does in the manual. Finally there's a sliding cover on the back of the top, which you can remove to access the GPS transponder and its associated port - this is because you have the option of removing the transponder, hooking it up to a long provided cable, and remoting it closer to a window. Nifty!
There's an FAQ at http://support.vzw.com/faqs/Equipment/network_extender.html . The device needs to be two feet away from any wifi access point. It can take AN HOUR for the GPS to finish initial setup. The phone needs to come close (10 feet?) to the device when you are bringing it into the extender network (each time), but once it is "connected", you can move much farther away from the base. No EVDO, but supposedly it will do 1Xrtt. You can bring it with you when you are traveling (in the US).
I fired it up first without remoting the GPS transponder. The GPS and system lights never turned blue from red. However I was able to "see" the device on Verizon's site and almost immediately manage the restriction list. After about 15 minutes I shut it down again, and ran the transponder over to the window. After almost another 10 minutes, the GPS light finally went blue. It took another 5-10 minutes for the system light to finally go solid blue. Within a minute or so two of my phones had full bars, and test calls were successful and clear. So far I appear to have a good signal in every part of my house I have tried. The device is actually located in a hutch too.
I can't wait to try out text messages, and also see how well the signal lasts through the night in my bedroom. It's early days yet, but so far the extender seems awesome, really amazing. I can't believe this long vigil is finally over, and this dream ending, out of nowhere honestly, is real.
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Update: The simple work phone had a great signal at least down to and into the garage (100 ft? I’m poor at gauging distances). The Windows Mobile had no signal in the garage (which is par for the course – we’ve always said great pdas, sucky phones). I swung out about 30 feet into the backyard while I was out there, and both phones were able to place a call there. Whether they can reliably receive calls and text messages remains to be seen. Also there is some question about them dropping in and out of the extender network (when they are on the edge of it) – does that mean they would actually have to come close to the device again to reconnect?
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