Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Remember the cell phone ad with the roving guy in the trench coat forever trying to get a better signal? Who among us hasn't staked out special corner, outside balcony or certain chair in the lobby where we can get the bars we need to make our calls?

Femtocells may soon make that a dilemma of the past. A femtocell is a small device, about the size of an alarm clock, that plugs into your Internet connection (DSL or Cable Modem). It enables your nearby cell phone to switch seamlessly back and forth between it's cell connection and wi-fi when the signal cell starts dropping out. What you get is a smooth, clear signal without interuption.

Sprint announced this week it's adding femtocell service for a flat fee of about $15 a month. T-Mobile already offers femtocell for about $20 a month. Both are only availabe in a few markets at this time, but nationwide deployment is expected as early as next year.

Other advantages of femtocell:

- Switch your cell to call through wi-fi whenever possible. It'll keep the minutes down, since connecting through the Internet is a flat fee service. Double check with your carrier on the particulars.

- T-mobile users can take advantage of the 8000 T-mobile hotspots around the country and use femtocell at those locations.

- The eventual deployment of femtocells over the next couple of years in public places could be especially helpful to cell phone users who often lose their signal on subways and other spotty areas.

- Most airports, shopping malls, large buildings of any kind, even airplanes currently bolster cell phone coverage with microcells and picocells. Both, however, are much more expensive than femtocells. For that reason, femtocells are expected to really take off in the near future benefiting not only the personal consumer, but smaller businesses.

File this under technology to watch.