Vodafone Access Gateway

Feek · 11-07-2009, 11:49

My company phone is on Vodafone, all our company phones are Vodafone and I've always had a pretty rubbish signal here at home. It's a pain because I'm on call so I need to get decent reception around the house and garden.

Vodafone recently announced and released their Vodafone Access Gateway. As I'm in charge of our phone contract I arranged to get a couple of these.

I swapped my Blackberry Curve for the Bold as the gateway only generates a 3G signal and my Curve isn't 3G. Both the gateway and the Blackberry arrived on Thursday so I set it all up on Friday and it works a dream!

I now get a full five bars 3G signal all throughout the house and down into the garden. Audio quality is superb as I'd expect these days on a VoIP system.

If you're on Vodafone, have a poor signal at home and an ADSL broadband connection, I can really recommend one of these boxes.

Now I want one for O2 and one for Orange! Shame they don't exist yet.

Del Lardo · 11-07-2009, 12:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feek

Now I want one for O2 and one for Orange! Shame they don't exist yet.

Give it a year or so and the mobile phone companies will be throwing Femto cells around like candy.

Toby · 11-07-2009, 12:41

Nifty device, didn't realise they did anything like this.

So basically, when in range, your phone thinks it's on the Vodafone 3G network but instead is routing via your broadband connection? How does this work with call allowances and so forth? Can you call and text with impunity without using up your allowance?

Burble · 11-07-2009, 13:05

O2 are working on a femto cell with 802.11g built in. No idea what the estimated shipment date is because they've only recently placed the order for the 802.11g chips.

Feek · 11-07-2009, 13:06

Pretty much, the phone just talks to the gateway instead of the mast that's a few miles away. I don't know how it works against the allowance though as the business contracts don't include any calls/texts (we pay £0.00 monthly rental costs).

Mark · 11-07-2009, 13:10

As Del Lardo correctly spotted, it's a femtocell. It acts much the same as any other base station would, except that it uses your ISP to communicate with the phone network. Access charges apply just the same as they would for any other base station, which is why it is in the operator's interests to subsidise them.

Toby · 11-07-2009, 13:26

That article also asked the one big question which was on my mind, namely how do you prevent neighbours connecting to your gateway?

Feek · 11-07-2009, 18:30

Oh that's easy. You provide a list of up to 30 numbers which are able to access it. Any other phones don't even know it's there.

LeperousDust · 11-07-2009, 18:56

Thats pretty damn cool!

11-07-2009, 11:49	#1
Feek ex SAS Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: JO01ou Posts: 10,062	Vodafone Access Gateway My company phone is on Vodafone, all our company phones are Vodafone and I've always had a pretty rubbish signal here at home. It's a pain because I'm on call so I need to get decent reception around the house and garden. Vodafone recently announced and released their Vodafone Access Gateway. As I'm in charge of our phone contract I arranged to get a couple of these. I swapped my Blackberry Curve for the Bold as the gateway only generates a 3G signal and my Curve isn't 3G. Both the gateway and the Blackberry arrived on Thursday so I set it all up on Friday and it works a dream! I now get a full five bars 3G signal all throughout the house and down into the garden. Audio quality is superb as I'd expect these days on a VoIP system. If you're on Vodafone, have a poor signal at home and an ADSL broadband connection, I can really recommend one of these boxes. Now I want one for O2 and one for Orange! Shame they don't exist yet. __________________

11-07-2009, 12:41	#3
Toby Absinthe Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 1,023	Nifty device, didn't realise they did anything like this. So basically, when in range, your phone thinks it's on the Vodafone 3G network but instead is routing via your broadband connection? How does this work with call allowances and so forth? Can you call and text with impunity without using up your allowance? __________________

11-07-2009, 13:06	#5
Feek ex SAS Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: JO01ou Posts: 10,062	Pretty much, the phone just talks to the gateway instead of the mast that's a few miles away. I don't know how it works against the allowance though as the business contracts don't include any calls/texts (we pay £0.00 monthly rental costs). __________________

11-07-2009, 13:26	#7
Toby Absinthe Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 1,023	That article also asked the one big question which was on my mind, namely how do you prevent neighbours connecting to your gateway? __________________

11-07-2009, 18:30	#8
Feek ex SAS Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: JO01ou Posts: 10,062	Oh that's easy. You provide a list of up to 30 numbers which are able to access it. Any other phones don't even know it's there. __________________

11-07-2009, 13:05	#4
Burble Rocket Fuel Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 7,826	O2 are working on a femto cell with 802.11g built in. No idea what the estimated shipment date is because they've only recently placed the order for the 802.11g chips.

11-07-2009, 13:10	#6
Mark Screaming Orgasm Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Newbury Posts: 15,194	As Del Lardo correctly spotted, it's a femtocell. It acts much the same as any other base station would, except that it uses your ISP to communicate with the phone network. Access charges apply just the same as they would for any other base station, which is why it is in the operator's interests to subsidise them.

11-07-2009, 18:56	#9
LeperousDust Bananaman Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Liverpool/Edinburgh Posts: 4,817	Thats pretty damn cool! __________________