http://www.nextel.com/en/services/airave/index.shtml

Guys, that's the coolest thing ever. Sprint's coming out with a CDMA picocell you can put in your house near a window (you need GPS reception for CDMA to work right, unless you have a stratum 1 primary reference source kicking around), slap onto your internet connection, and basically put your cell coverage anywhere you want. This is awesome. It even supports 1xRTT data.

I've been wanting something like this to come out for a while – it only makes sense. This blows away T Mobile's offering that uses 802.11b/g wireless, because this works with ANY sprint CDMA phone. You don't have to get a special phone to make it work.

12 thoughts on “”

  1. In theory I'm supposed to be getting one of these, since my house acts like a Faraday Cage to CDMA signals. No idea when, though.

  2. Excerpt from key features:

    Works with any Sprint phone — up to three users at the same time.¹
    Installs in minutes with your existing broadband Internet access, such as DSL, cable or T1.
    Unlimited incoming and outgoing calls, including nationwide long distance, when using your Sprint phone and initiating your call on the device (requires an AIRAVE unlimited calling plan).**

    And from pricing:

    Sprint AIRAVE Base Station – $99.99/each (requires activation at time of purchase and subscription to an AIRAVE plan. Excludes taxes.)
    AIRAVE Enhanced Coverage Charge – $4.99/mo. (required per AIRAVE unit)**
    Single Line Unlimited Calling Plan (optional) – $10/mo.**
    Multi-Line Unlimited Calling Plan (optional) – $20/mo. per account**

    So, it costs you $5/month to operate the picocell. Then you pay an extra $20/month for any airtime that any phone uses that connects to it to not count against the phone's owner. Otherwise, they pay for their used airtime like normal, even though you're not talking to their towers.

    The thing supports talking to a maximum of three phones at a time.

    Did I miss anything?

    The thing's cool, don't get me wrong. But with a limitation of three simultaneous connections, You get three people outside your home/office who have a stronger signal coming from your picocell than from the nearest tower, you're out phone service.

    1. They have an ACL on the unit you can set up to control who can use it. It's definitely cool if your service is marginal at your house, paying $5 to make it not suck is awesome.

  3. yea, it does. Since it basically is a cell tower (it speaks standard CDMA and 1xRTT), I don't see why there'd be anything special about 911 calls.

  4. well yea, the towers do that too, but it flips on the GPS in the handset if supported too. I bet it does hand AGPS to the handset for a faster fix though.

  5. there's no standard for transmitting positional data over SIP. Even if so, the methods necessary to assign the data to a pANI and map it into a boundary file so you can build the 911 record's ESQK data so you can route to the right PSAP and transmit valid ALI data all but require that you connect to the selective routers identically to a cell carrier's phase 2 setup, which isn't something any CLEC has that I'm aware of. Crazy stuff.

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