Vodaphone Access Gateway £160

It may not look much, but this new device could make dodgy mobile reception at home a thing of the past. The Access Gateway is a book-sized box that acts like a personal mobile phone mast, ensuring crystal-clear phone calls and fast mobile internet access anywhere around the house.

It uses a home broadband internet connection to link calls to the phone company’s main network — cutting out the need to pick up signals from conventional mobile phone masts. The device is available to Vodafone users only, but 3 and T-Mobile, among others, are planning similar versions.

Last week Ofcom, the communications watchdog, published a report that shows huge swathes of Britain are still struggling to receive mobile phone coverage. It suggested the phone companies look for “creative” solutions, including sharing masts and even disguising them as trees or chimneys to lessen the impact on the environment. The Gateway would solve the problem for many at a stroke.

As well as enabling easy access to the internet via the mobile phone network, the Gateway has other advantages. Because the handset has to use far less power to communicate with the Gateway, its battery life is extended. Also, the radiation to which users are exposed is much reduced and the technology makes it feasible to run just one handset for mobile and home telephony alike.

The secret to the Gateway is the femtocell, a scaled-down version of the huge mobile phone masts that dot the country. There are more than 50,000 such masts in the UK but their coverage falls dramatically once inside the home, because brick and glass can block signals — especially at the high frequencies required for fast 3G internet connections.

However, with an active femtocell in the home, you are only a matter of feet away from a mast of your own, broadcasting at one ten-thousandth of the energy of its big brother.

The Vodafone Access Gateway, which is Britain’s first femtocell, went on sale this month for £160, or free on a mobile phone contract, with call charges no different from existing mobile deals.

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