Femtocell technology was mentioned off and on last year throughout mobile industry news reports but it hasn’t ever really taken off in spite of femtocell technology trials in different parts of the world. That could be changing with a new announcement from Airvana about their femtocell-based HubBub which is being demonstrated at CTIA Wireless 2009. The new product advances the abilities of femtocell technology in a way that could finally make this technology more appealing to a wider base of users.

The main purpose of femtocells in the past has been to improve indoor cell phone coverage so that voice call quality doesn’t drop when you move from outdoors to indoors with your mobile phone. Although that’s a nice added benefit of the HubBub, Airvana’s new product shows that there may be a better reason to adopt femtocell technology. The new product shows how mobile broadband speeds are significantly increased when using femtocell technology as compared to when relying on the standard wireless network.

It is common for smartphone users today to be particularly interested in high-speed data transfers on their phones. Advanced phones including the iPhone and the BlackBerry Storm give people access to numerous mobile web services but these services aren’t any fun to use if you’re on a slow network. The installation of Airvana’s HubBub can speed up the indoor network and offer these users an upgrade from 3G to 4G speeds in their homes. This is particularly useful in homes where multiple people access high-speed Internet on their phones since the product can accommodate multiple phones without slowing down. This could be the thing that makes femtocell of interest to users in 2009.