Vodafone is conducting trials of mini, plug-in base stations that can be installed in a house or office to improve call quality technology, which, its proponents argue, may signal the demise of the landline telephone.

The stations, known as “femtocells”, are palm-sized boxes that connect to the mobile network via a user's broadband connection.

They work with a range of mobile standards and ABI Research, the technology analyst, forecasts that by 2011 there will be 102 million users of femtocells worldwide.

Vodafone is believed to be considering products from suppliers such as Ubiquisys, the British technology group, whose backers include Google and Motorola.

It is thought that operators will subsidise the cost of the equipment, giving away the boxes as part of the increasingly common “bundled” packages of broadband and mobile.

Despite huge advances in mobile phone technology, poor indoor coverage remains a bugbear for many users and is a key reason for people to change mobile phone networks.

Analysys, the telecoms consultancy, estimates that a quarter of homes in Britain have coverage problems that make it impossible to make good quality calls from some rooms.

Despite the problems, the use of mobile devices in the home is taking off. Deloitte estimates that 70 per cent of mobile voice calls this year and a similar proportion of mobile data use will originate inside buildings.

The switch from landlines to mobiles indoors has forced mobile operators to take rapid action to steal call minutes from BT and the other fixed-line providers, Deloitte said.

A Vodafone spokesman said: “We are conducting trials to evaluate the technology and hope to be in a position to report back sometime in the next couple of months.”

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