Comparing coverage quality for femtocell and macrocell broadband data services

This article presents the results of a series of field tests to characterize femtocell coverage quality in typical residential houses with respect to high-speed data services. The study proves femtocell users can expect to observe an improvement of more than five times in average airlink data speeds relative to the existing macrocell network. The article presents the methodology used in the tests, and offers summary results for both 1xEV-DO and HSDPA technologies. The results presented here show that the case for using femtocells for broadband data services is even stronger than for voice-based services.