Yes, folks, I’m back after a week’s hiatus. You know you missed me.

So we’re all familiar with the hype curve and the trail of lifeless bodies it’s left in its wake over the years, yes? Think muni wireless, MVNOs, hosted VoIP, betamax, the Atkins diet …

Well, femtocells might just be the next casualty of hype’s dreaded glance. These small personal base stations sit within the home and use existing broadband connections to backhaul wireless voice with some kind of a VoIP special sauce. To be very technical about it. Well, I suppose I could go into UMA and exactly how it all happens, but that’s not really what’s important, now, is it? No. What matters is that the carrier gets increased indoor wireless quality and a way to take on the wireline competitor in the battle for the building. It’s analogous to dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular approaches, only a whole lot easier to deploy.

So far, so good, and I for one have been thinking that given increasing cellco backhaul issues, femtocells could really take off in a big way …well, after more than two vendors start offering them and they get cheaper and consumer education ramps up (paging Sprint) and on and on. Judging by what’s been flooding my inbox though, I’m starting to get nervous, because that THING is starting to happen. You know what I’m talking about…that at first subtle refrain reverberating through the industry “femto femto femto,” to be followed by a deluge of breathless endorsements of how femto technology is the Second Coming of Alexander Graham Bell. To be followed a bit later by collective disappointment and the leaving of the technology behind by all but the diehards, who will then spend the next 18 months convincing everyone that femtos do, really, make sense. And finally, if the industry’s lucky, the technology will start to be deployed and we’ll be back to where we would have been two years earlier if the hype-sters had just left well enough alone.

Back to my concerns. Femtos are great, really they are, but let’s take this slowly, can we? We want this to work, of course. But here’s an example from a typical femto-related pitch I’ve been getting:

“There are only two companies with CDMA femtocells currently available, and one of them, AirWalk Communications, will debut a significant new access product at CTIA. They’ll also be talking about their customers, their strategy, and the trends they see in this young but rapidly advancing market.”

Rapidly advancing market? Didn’t you just say there are only two companies with CDMA femtocells? That’s more like a trickle. And besides, with CDMA regulated mostly to our dear United States, that doesn’t do much for Moore’s Law, does it? Yes, TaraBytes is in a cynical mood, I’ll admit.

All of that said, operators could be the key to staving off the overhype by actually deploying it. Dan Hesse is keynoting CTIA, too, and let’s face it, what else is he going to talk about? Sure, he could tackle WiMAX — again — but Sprint usually trots out Barry West for that. So maybe he’ll chat about femtocells. In light of recent events I’m pretty sure Sprint’s shocking profit losses, increasing subscriber churn and lack of competitive devices aren’t on the docket, so …

Bottom line? Run, femtocells, run. Hype is coming for you.

P.S.: Fittingly, the first intelligible phone call was placed — “Come here, Watson, I want you” — this week in history back in 1876. Happy birthday, communications industry. Thanks for the gainful employment.