Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Wireless set a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of 500% market penetration for mobile devices at his speech at CTIA this month. Is this realistic or feasible? Will this encourage femtocells to make it happen?

 There's an excellent marketing book which documents theories and experiments to prove the irrationality in human behaviour. Some of these concepts could easily be applied to how femtocells are priced and marketed – and also explain some of the feedback and (dare I say) hostility to some pricing models. Let me explain what it uncovered about free pricing, and discuss how that might affect femtocell pricing offers.

I've said in the past that femtocells are irrelevant in many developing countries, primarily because of the limited availability of domestic broadband. Since then, the scope and applications for femtocells has changed. There is a growing focus on business/enterprise markets as early adopters because they are less price sensitive than domestic users. This argument could equally apply in developing countries. Let's consider this in more detail.

Mobile network operators have up to now invested very large sums of money rolling out cellsites across the country before recouping their costs. Femtocells offer a much more scalable investment profile with much smaller initial fixed cost. This makes it lower risk and potentially much better cashflow.