Amid confirmation that Vodafone has launched the U.K.’s first 3G femtocell service in the UK we may be entering a new period of growth in the UK broadband market. Femtocell services are readily available on the continent and effectively connect your handset to your broadband service, offering a wider coverage and potentially improved quality by redirecting traffic through your ISPs broadband connection.
Even though femtocell technology has been around for sometime it could get a fairly slow introduction to the UK market as there are concerns that broadband providers will at some point complain, and potentially issue additional charges, due to the fact that they will be effectively carrying the traffic of their competitors. This is an issue which is sure to become more mainstream in the months and years ahead as mobile phone companies and ISPs attempt to keep their cost bases as low as possible.
The convergence of the mobile phone sector and the UK broadband sector continues to gather pace with many of the opinion that we will see significant mergers and partnerships in the not too distant future. Whether this will result in reduced competition in the UK market, and potentially impact upon consumer prices, remains to be seen but there is certainly a power struggle in the UK Internet market at this moment in time.