Femtocell Solution was Sprint’s Second Technology Choice

Implications: 1.      Sprint actually had developed a combination phone with both WiFi and CDMA. 2.      A competitor one-upped it by introducing a handset with a dual-mode chip set sooner. 3.      Shifting to femtocells was another example of Sprint grasping at straws instead of more simply and more safely being the me-too network.

Analysis:  Former Sprint Chief Marketing Office, Tim Kelly, evidently made the decision to move to the femtocell concept.  This action reflected the overriding mentality at Sprint – always try to do something different.  Being the first with a solution was apparently more important than the potential negative tradeoff in terms of cost.  

The real oversight is the high amount of usage of WiFi by people.  Even those that are not especially technically savvy would probably be more inclined to want to get a phone that does WiFi than to deal with unfamiliar technology.  

There are just so many challenges with femtocells.   How do you keep them from transmitting on the wrong band in the wrong city?  The solution at the moment that Samsung is using is that there is a GPS in every femtocell.   But if the femtocell gets dropped in a basement, what are the odds it is going to get a GPS location signal?   Today, it just shuts down if it cannot figure out the location.  And the questions over the viability in home situations technically completely ignores that Sprint wants the sub to pay to fix its own networking problem.