Microcell

This article is about the mobile telephony concept. For the Canadian cellular telephone service provider, see Fido Solutions. For the AT&T product, see Femtocell.
This article is about cell phone technology. For biological cells, see nanocell.

A microcell is a cell in a mobile phone network served by a low power cellular base station (tower), covering a limited area such as a mall, a hotel, or a transportation hub. A microcell is usually larger than a picocell, though the distinction is not always clear. A microcell uses power control to limit the radius of its coverage area.

Typically the range of a microcell is less than two kilometers wide, whereas standard base stations may have ranges of up to 35 kilometres (22 mi). A picocell, on the other hand, is 200 meters or less, and a femtocell is on the order of 10 meters,[1] although AT&T calls its femtocell that has a range of 40 feet (12 m), a "microcell".[2] AT&T uses "AT&T 3G MicroCell" as a trademark and not necessarily the "microcell" technology, however.[3]

A microcellular network is a radio network composed of microcells.

  1. ^ "Do we really need femto cells? | VisionMobile :: Blog". Archived from the original on 2011-04-16. Retrieved 2010-07-04.
  2. ^ "AT&T; 3G Microcell™ - Wireless from AT&T". Archived from the original on 2010-02-21. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
  3. ^ "AT&T 3G MicroCell - Wireless Signal Booster - Wireless from AT&T". Wireless.att.com. Archived from the original on 2010-02-21. Retrieved 2014-03-17.