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Personalization and location awareness are key elements in enhancing the mobile experience and developers are always looking at ways to combine the two. Enter a sexier application for the femtocell than mere indoor coverage improvement - the ability to change the interface on a user's handset in different locations.

Femto Forum members have actually been demonstrating location aware uses of the tiny indoor base stations for some time, with the customer receiving specific information or apps when in range of the femto, usually within his or her homezone. But UK-based femtocell maker Ubiquisys has managed to add to the headline grabbing potential by combining all this with the software platform du jour, Android.

Ubiquisys and software developer Intrinsyc have collaborated on an Android handset interface, called UX-Zone, that changes in proximity to a 'friendly femto'. The device could, for instance, display new widgets and icons when at home - giving instant access to user-defined apps, to content held on the home network, or to home-oriented systems like 'virtual post-it' messages. When the customer returns to the macro network - or potentially to another zone such as the office - the look and feel, and the availability of these apps, changes.

This is achieved using presence triggers from the base station, created under the Ubiquisys FemtoApps initiative, which is looking for uses of the devices that go beyond improved indoor penetration or capacity, and support new user behaviors. This should, the start-up argues, make the femto more attractive to consumers, boosting uptake so the operator can achieve its key goal of offloading heavy duty traffic from the macro network when the subscriber is at home.

UX-Zone could also be deployed by enterprises to provide a customized homescreen on Android gadgets when on campus or within certain buildings, perhaps with quick links to corporate apps and information boards.

The choice of Android for this pilot, apart from its current high profile, is because of its open source nature - the more developers can be attracted to creating apps that harness the capabilities of a femto, the more compelling they will be to consumers. By interacting more effectively with the network, the user experience should improve - also the goal of trends like software stores - driving usage and giving the carrier greater intelligence about each customer's behavior and spending patterns. If heavy traffic like home video or photo upload can also be offloaded from the macro network, the cellco can even save money in the process.

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