The Femto vs WiFi debate (which I posted about here) really heated up at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona last week. (Sounds like that show was a blast. Wish I could’ve been there.)

ITWire reports on what they call “one of the most significant femtocell announcements to date” namely, that NetGear has released a new product that combines a femtocell (provided by Ubiquisys) with a DSL modem, router, WiFi AP and 4 port switch. Cool. But if you want one, you’ll have to wait till your carrier decides to offer this. Remind you of anything? Unfortunately, you can’t buy “unlocked” femto cells like you can with cellphones. (In fact, operating an unlicensed one is illegal.)

Stacey Higginbotham posted two good articles on the matter:

LTE: Dreaming of Wireless Broadband addresses the intersection of LTE with UMA, Femtocells, WiMax and Voice-over-Wifi. One thing’s for sure, folks: Options for wireless broadband aren’t getting any simpler. There won’t be a clear winner for years.

Femtocells or Wi-Fi? That is the Question brings up an angle I hadn’t thought of yet: Enterprises will prefer the WiFi approach because it gives them more power to control quality and security aspects. Looking through the comments on that post, it seems like WiFi might not be as power hungry as we’re led to believe. Maybe that’s disinformation from the Femto guys… FemtoFUD?

We need someone independent to do real-world tests of WiFi radio power consumption on a bunch of handsets.