Not a direct comparison though. UMA is a totally different technology. The T-Mobile femtocell WILL follow the same rules as all the other carriers.
It actually can be done, there are offload capabilities available right now for 3g networks. Just need to make really small versions of one of those. Quite possible, just nobody has done it in a femtocell.
Interesting that the back end is so expensive. It is extremely cheap for every other Internet termination. Somebody clearly is massively overcharging the wireless carriers. Every other complaint around here has been the massive cost of running traffic over the air NOT about the massive costs of the Internet or Metro core.
The reason that it is a big deal is that the user should be charging AT&T for the use of his/her bandwidth just as AT&T pays for T-1s/fiber to backhaul from the RAN today. In essence, they have offloaded that cost - charged the user for that priviledge for no apparent gain for the customer. So, I would be happy to CHARGE AT&T for the use of my backhaul link.
If they don't want their Internet connection being used, then DON'T BUY A FEMTOCELL!!!! You argument has NO MERIT.
There is additional equipment required on the back end to support femtocells. So costs associated with the back haul also get moved over to this. The back haul is the cheap portion; cheaper than Internet connections. Dedicated Internet connections use the same core infrastructure as dedicated Internet connections; MPLS. The carrier could also use dark fiber to build a network.
The Internet Core is trivially cheap on a per user basis. That is the whole point of it. Think about how many dollars PER USER there are. Not the cost of the actual equipment. Then think about the cost PER USER there is to lease 8 - 10 T-1s or 100 Mb/s Ethernet to a cell site.
In your business model, femtocells should not exist. Since RANs and backhaul are so cheap compared to the extra router port required, companies should place them as many places as they can.
Gateway solutions exist that offload selective traffic from mobile core networks and that also provide Lawful Intercept.
Not sure this is a smoke screen as there are some valid arguments. Even with a gateway solution, the femtocell data traffic would be using the AT&T network, just not the GGSN and AT&T would still be required to provide lawful intercept. The traffic from the femtocell to AT&T’s security gateway is encrypted in a tunnel, so only on the other side of that tunnel can data (or voice) traffic be intercepted.
With SIPTO, traffic would be offloaded to the fixed broadband provider with all other traffic from that DSL/cable/fiber router. However, there would be to be a clearer regulatory environment to allow this to happen.
Another possible other reason for this charging on data caps is that the back-office/billing systems couldn't support this separate accounting.
<< The backhaul is the cheap portion; cheaper than internet connection>>
As per my many years of experience designing backhaul network for many wireless service providers around the world, the REVERSE is normally true. The ONLY EXCEPTION are the providers in the third world countries.
Not a direct comparison though. UMA is a totally different technology. The T-Mobile femtocell WILL follow the same rules as all the other carriers.