Tech at Play

Did I mention that I finally subscribed to the femtocell service by StarHub in Singapore called Home Zone?  Yup, did that last week, and StarHub was kind enough to offer me the original promotional rate of SG$16 (About US$11) per month, which is half of the standard rate.  Anyway, it appeared that the model I was been using has since been retired, so StarHub delivered a newer model to my place today at no additional charge.

The new unit looks slightly slimmer than the previous set, but otherwise features the same connections: a power connector and an RJ-45 port.  A SIM card could also be found pre-installed  in the SIM slot in order to authenticate the access point.

Performance

I only had it for a few hours so far, but I can say that the reception for this newer unit is definitely improved.  I must confess that I insisted on installing the access point unit in my study room – where it can be on the same rack as my server and gigabit switch.  This setup was convenient to me, though it wasn’t ideal from a technical point of view – there were at at least three concrete walls between the unit and the kitchen area.

As you can imagine, the previous femtocell access point has some trouble reaching that particular blind spot; not so with this unit though.  In addition, the transfer from Home Zone to the normal base station appeared to be completely seamless with my BlackBerry Bold now.

Other observations

A peek at the box yields some interesting information.  As you can see from the sticker on the box, Huawei does make an “Enterprise AP” variant of the femtocell access point.  At this point, I’m not sure what “GSM Sniffer” means, since the femtocell access point works only on UMTS and is clearly labeled as such.  And probably due to government regulations pertaining to maximum broadcast power in Singapore, the unit was capped at 20mW of transmit power only.

Interestingly, the user manual inside the box does warn for the device to be kept “at least 20cm” away from people for “personal safety.”

Anyway, that’s all I have for now.  I will blog again if anything significant turns up later.

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