After Gizmodo posted a quick review of AT&T’s upcoming Microcell 3G, I wanted to take a look at the femtocell situation as a whole. By and large I think femtocells are a great idea. They provide a relatively low cost method for increasing your cell signal at home. The cost could be lower though, as in free, and would breed a lot of good blood between provider and consumer.

As it stands there are a few options for a femtocell. There’s the AT&T Microcell 3G, which costs $150 plus $20/month if you opt for the unlimited Microcell minutes plan. Without a plan your femtocell minutes will be deducted from your monthly account as usual. You can get Sprint’s Airave, which runs $100 plus $15/month for unlimited calls on one line. MagicJack is also reportedly releasing a femtocell, which will likely be the most reasonable of the bunch, at an undisclosed unit cost and the $20/year service fee.

It’s hard to fault MagicJack for the yearly fee since it isn’t a service provider, and yet it provides the best service out of any of these solutions. It seems odd, in the case of AT&T and Sprint to pay to use your existing broadband connection to send data more reliably than over the cellular network for which you also already pay. It reeks of customer extortion.

Consider an alternative – AT&T says hey guys, we’re really sorry about our crappy network performance, but these femtocells will run you $50 one time, won’t count against your cellular minutes, and will drastically improve your home service since we’ve basically replaced your home phone anyway. Do you know how many people would buy one? Everyone. Every single person with a cellphone would get one of these things, and everyone would be a lot happier with their current service.

You can bet people will flee from AT&T once the iPhone is available elsewhere. This is just another reason to leave.