Verizon Wireless is joining Sprint Nextel Corp. in jumping on the latest craze in the wireless world: little boxes called femtocells that boost cell-phone coverage in subscribers’ homes.

“Our plans are to deploy femtocells in 2008,” Verizon Wireless’ Chief Technology Officer, Tony Melone, said Wednesday at the CTIA Wireless industry show in Las Vegas.

Much is unclear about the plan, including how much Verizon Wireless plans to charge. But Melone said the company was gearing up for a full-fledged rollout.

Sprint is the only other carrier that is conducting more than a small trial with the technology, but it is selling femtocells only in Denver, Indianapolis and Nashville, Tenn.

When it launched the program last year, Sprint said it was planning to take the offer nationwide that year, but it hasn’t announced any specific plans to do so.

Femtocells address a challenge for the industry as more and more folks drop their landlines: poor cellular coverage within the

home. Femtocells tackle that by projecting a cellular signal in the home, much like a base station for a cordless phone. They look much like Wi-Fi routers, which have become a common household appliance. The term femtocells contrasts them with cellular towers that supply coverage outdoors — “femto” is a scientific term for something very small.

But are customers ready to bring another electronic box into the house?

Femtocell vendors at the show say “yes” — considering the devices solve a lot of problems for carriers.

“It’s so much to their benefit to get these into people’s homes that they’re going to subsidize these things,” said Paul Callahan, vice president of business development for Airvana Inc. The Chelmsford, Mass., company makes femtocells that are being tested by several carriers around the world.

Not only do femtocells improve coverage indoors, where the carrier has a hard day reaching, they plus reduce the…

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