Vodafone relaunches femtocell line as Sure Signal and slashes prices

Femtocells are short range 3G radios, designed for home and office use to offer better coverage. The owner plugs their femtocell into their broadband service for connection with the Vodafone network.

As well as promising better coverage for customers indoors, femtocell products like the Sure Signal are also attractive to networks, as they can take some of the strain off their 3G networks.

It's no coincidence that Vodafone has launched its Sure Signal brand shortly after Vodafone has taken on the iPhone, which has become notorious for the amount of extra data traffic it generates over 3G networks.

Sure Signal requires home broadband with a minimum line speed of 1Mbps and, of course, a 3G mobile phone on a Vodafone plan. The Sure Signal can be registered with up to 32 different mobiles and used by up to four phones at the same time to make calls.

The Sure Signal box is about the size of a wireless router, around 19cm tall and 15cm wide.

Vodafone seems to keen to sell the Sure Signal. It is also offering its customers an option pay £5 per month (rather than the upfront £50) for a year, so long as the customer is already on a contract of at least £25 per month.

Vodafone's decision to subsidise the price of its femtocell offering is partly a recognition of customer resistance to having to pay extra to get decent reception they feel they should have had in the first place, as well as reflecting the lower demand placed on the Vodafone network.