Sprint was the first wireless carrier to embrace femtocell technology, their Airave service debuting back in 2007 and allowing unlimited mobile calls over a user’s home broadband connection for an added fee. While the old version didn’t support EVDO wireless broadband, they’ve started shipping a new unit that does.

The new unit can run up to six simultaneous calls (up from three with the last unit), and Sprint is giving the device away free to customers who call in and complain about indoor coverage. In fact, we know someone who was given two Airaves for free; one for his home and one for his small business down the road.

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As noted back in January, MagicJack was gearing up to offer a new femtocell product that will allow users to make cheap calls using a GSM-based mobile phone. There’s still very limited technical details about the product, outside of the fact it detects a compatible phone within eight feet of the USB femtocell device, and allows users to make VoIP calls with it.

Back in January MagicJack said the device was supposed to go on sale right around now (present time) for somewhere between $20-$40.

More recently the company started telling blogs that the product is still expected to come out this year but with a new wrinkle: the company’s partnering with an as-yet-unnamed mobile carrier. Except given the technology is GSM based, here in the States obviously the company would have to partner either with AT&T or T-Mobile.

But according to a new article by Peter Svensson of the AP, the project is now “on hold” as finding that partner has apparently proven difficult:

Borislow said plans for the device are now on hold. The device had to use low signal power levels to get around legal restrictions on the use of licensed spectrum, but that also shortened the range and reduced sound quality. He’s now looking for a carrier partner that would allow him to turn the power up.

In other words, neither AT&T or T-Mobile were interested in promoting a technology that could cannibalize their own business models. Of course MagicJack creator Dan Borislow has something else cooked up: he’s launching a software version of MagicJack this week called MagicTalk that offers free calls to landlines or cellphones in the U.S. or Canada.

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As noted back in January, Magic Jack is gearing up to offer a new femtocell product that will allow users to make cheap calls using a GSM based mobile phone. There’s still very limited technical details about the product, outside of the fact it detects a compatible phone within eight feet of the USB femto device, and allows users to make VoIP calls with it.

Back in January Magic Jack said the device was supposed to go on sale right around now for somewhere between $20-$40. Now the company is telling blogs that the product is still expected to come out this year but with a new wrinkle: the company’s partnering with an as-yet-unnamed mobile carrier. Given T-Mobile and AT&T are the only GSM carriers, it’s either one of them, or one of the prepaid carriers riding on one of those two networks.

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AT&T’s Microcell service, which uses a femtocell service to extend in-home cellular connectivity (by allowing users to make calls over broadband) appears to have had a rocky launch. Posts to the official AT&T forum indicate that a significant number of users struggled to get their units activated last week, and while AT&T says those problems are fixed, other users appear to be struggling with issues like voice latency as well. Of course the femtocell sector has been eager to see the femtocell idea take off but carriers have seemingly done their best to constrain this growth through pricing models that forget to offer consumer value. If you’re interested in the technology (at least through AT&T) you may want to wait a little longer for the kinks to be worked out.

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It was noted how AT&T’s Microcell femtocell service was already a dubious value proposition given the device, intended to improve in-home cell coverage by routing voice and data calls over broadband, involves users paying AT&T to help ease congestion on local towers. Not only does routing calls over your broadband service result in you eating your minutes, but it also now appears that using 3G at home eats away at your caps.

That’s absurd, given that both voice and 3G over the device uses the user’s bandwidth – and not precious backhaul resources.

AT&T’s been making the rounds trying to give an explanation for why they made the decision to make their Microcell service an even worse value, but the explanations so far aren’t making sense.

“3G MicroCell is primarily intended to enhance the voice call quality experience in your home,” AT&T’s Seth Bloom tells us. “While it can carry mobile data traffic, that’s not the primary solution it provides,” he says. “Wi-Fi is the optimal solution for home mobile data use. We encourage people to take advantage of Wi-Fi capabilities – that’s why all of our smartphones include Wi-Fi radios, and usage on Wi-Fi doesn’t count against your mobile data usage bucket.”

Customers will probably decide to use their Wi-Fi connection when in the home. That still doesn’t explain why AT&T lets the service eat 3G bandwidth caps should they use 3G. In that case, the traffic’s being routed over the exact same broadband connection as Wi-Fi. Whether users should use 3G over the Microcell in the home when Wi-Fi’s available isn’t the point. The service still shouldn’t be eating your wireless caps just like femtocells shouldn’t eat your voice minutes.

Bloom goes on to insist that the Microcell “uses our core wireless network just like a call placed while driving down the highway uses the core wireless network.” “The only difference is how that data or call gets there via a MicroCell connected to a wired broadband connection instead of a cell tower.”

Again though, you’re not using AT&T’s tower or their backhaul, you’re using your own already-paid-for bandwidth. AT&T’s entire justification for their new low caps and overages is backhaul and tower congestion (though even that’s dubious – simple profit is the more likely motivation) – and congestion’s not an issue here. Sure, there’s costs involved, but they’re minor compared to the costs of traditional wireless connectivity.

Consider these are users shelling out for a home broadband connection, a wireless 3G and data connection, possibly an added landline connection, the upfront cost of hardware and an additional $20 if they want unlimited voice that doesn’t eat away at their minutes. Just how much are we expecting the average consumer to pay per month for simple, regular-use voice and data connectivity?

Either AT&T’s gunning to make an additional few million annually in revenue off of those incapable of differentiating between 3G and Wi-Fi, or they’re incapable of getting the Wi-Fi/3G femtocell billing straightened out and don’t want to admit it.

Some might think this is all rather nerdy semantics, but these are important questions when exploring how carriers seem to be sucking all the value out of the femtocell with absurd pricing decisions and other penalties – especially when the femtocell helps the carrier more than it does you.

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mimoOn announced it will be participating in the Femtozone at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona 15-18 February 2010. The Femtozone (Hall 1, Stand G19) is an area hosted by the Femto Forum, dedicated to featuring the leading companies in femtocell development, and will display the latest in femtocell markets, devices, and technology.

The Femtozone will feature a daily schedule of public presentations from operators and vendors on the major opportunities and challenges facing the femtocell market. mimoOn’s VP Standards & IP, Willem Mulder, will be making a presentation entitled “LTE self-optimizing networks – The way forward for large-scale cost-effective small cell rollout” at 4.30PM on Tuesday.

Let’s see if this finally bring femtocells to more widespread public usage since AT&T did a dismal job of releasing their femtocell product outside of Charlotte, NC and T-Mobile’s @Home sign-ups seemed to have ceased.

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The other day Broadbandreports.com pointed to a report noting that magicJack was planning to offer users a device that would allow them to make cheap calls using a mobile phone. Unfortunately, there initial report was extremely limited on technical specifics for the unit, dubbed the “femtojack.”

Since then, magicJack has officially unveiled and demonstrated the device at CES, and offers up this press release with only a little more detail. Says the press release:

This femtocell will work with mobile phones from potentially any carrier and you may even use an old GSM cell phone without any paid service plans with a carrier. Not only can people connect to their own magicJack device but they can also connect to other femtocell-enabled magicJacks at friends houses and businesses. All the user has to do is come within eight feet of the magicJack one time to register the connection and then talk away within a range of a 3000 square foot house.

Since the system is GSM only, by “potentially any carrier,” the company means it will only work over the T-Mobile or AT&T network (no comment yet from either about how they feel about this). How specifically magicJack hopes to make this work isn’t stated, nor is there any additional technical details being offered on the company website. The Associated Press proclaims the system uses, without permission, “radio frequencies for which cellular carriers have paid billions of dollars for exclusive licenses.” But then the AP gives this breakdown of how it will actually works:

The size of a deck of cards, it plugs into a PC, which needs a broadband Internet connection. The device then detects when a compatible cell phone comes within 8 feet, and places a call to it. The user enters a short code on the phone. The phone is then linked to the magicJack, and as long as it’s within range (YMax said it will cover a 3,000-square-foot home) magicJack routes the call itself, over the Internet, rather than going through the carrier’s cellular tower. No minutes are subtracted from the user’s account with the carrier. Any extra fees for international calls are subtracted from the user’s account with magicJack, not the carrier.

While magicJack is very popular among users, they have a strong tendency to use more noise than signal in many of their marketing efforts – and this latest one certainly doesn’t disappoint. If they stay true to their word, the device will hit the market in “about four months,” and we’ll give it a spin.

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[ Related Links: magicJack "One Year Later" Review ]

While some observers say femtocells have yet to prove their value, Kaul points to a combination of other factors: the general economic malaise, which makes the 0 pricetag of an unsubsidized femtocell harder to swallow; the time operators need to get their systems and networks ready for a femtocell deployment and to devise innovative pricing plans; a fear in some quarters that a rapid increase in femtocell numbers would cause interference in the macro network.

It’s hard to blame femtocell’s slow adoption on the economy or getting the services deployed. Many carriers already offer femtocells but they only offer them to customers who call in to complain about coverage issues. And frankly some of the pricing models are just absurd; Verizon’s femtocell pricing plan eats away at your wireless minutes even tough you’re making the wireless call over your own broadband connection. Again, where’s the value?

ABI predicts things could improve slightly in 2010 for the well-hyped technology, but that shipments will still be 40% lower than earlier predictions. That of course means a shake out among smaller femtocell vendors who actually listened to firms like ABI back in 2006 when they declared femtocells would be the hottest thing in telecom since the Hayes compatible.

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