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Author Topic: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)  (Read 2384 times)

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shmokes

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AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« on: March 02, 2011, 12:58:18 am »
I set one up in my in-laws' house today and it's pretty remarkable.  Admittedly, I haven't used it enough to assess it's long term reliability (it's been running for about six hours), but what I've seen so far has just been a solid 5 bars of cell reception throughout the entire house where usually I had no services at all.

For those who don't know, the Microcell is a miniature cell phone tower that routes your calls over your broadband connection.  The few calls I have made and received so far have been crystal clear.

For what it's worth, I called (pretending to be my father-in-law) and asked if there was anything I could do about my complete lack of reception in my home (I already knew about the Microcell, but I played dumb in the beginning).  I told them that Verizon works fine in my home (true), and that I switched because my kids were on AT&T (also true), but that the sales person assured me that there was coverage in my area (there is, just not in my home . . . you can get a signal on the road just in front of the driveway or on the back porch).  The girl told me about the Microcell and said she could knock $50 off of it, bringing it to $149.  I told her that was too expensive and that I would rather pay the $125 early termination fee to switch to Verizon which would produce the same result.  But she said it would be $125 per phone, bringing it to $250 so I asked to talk to a supervisor to have the fees waived.  He was an ---uvula--- right off the bat, but quickly relented and said that he would give it for $149 and put a $100 credit on the account, making the final price $49.  Not too bad.
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leapinlew

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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2011, 10:45:01 pm »
I have terrible reception on mine and I make sure my new phone can do WIFI calling or UMA.

Wifi calling on Android is awesome.

polaris

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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2011, 04:50:48 am »
vodafone do them over here, i'm really impressed with it,  and we get them free  ;)
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shmokes

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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2011, 10:25:12 am »
I may be backtracking on my initial positive review.  My phones are regularly refusing to connect to it, preferring instead to connect to a cell phone tower, even though the phone my have only one bar or no service at all.  In order to get the phone to reassociate with the Microcell I have to pull the battery and reboot, and even then it sometimes doesn't connect.

Tech support recommended that I get new SIM cards for my phones, but the lady I was talking to obviously had absolutely no idea what was going on so I'm not especially optimistic that the solution will actually solve the problem.  I'll know soon enough, I guess.  But I may end up returning the Microcell.
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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2011, 04:56:51 pm »
had mine 6 months, maybe 2 or 3 times i've had to reboot the iphone to get the 3g signal, i would give the new sim thing a try, i'm sure you can get them for free from your provider, i have had issues solved by upgrading to a newer sim card in the past but for the life of me cant remember what the issue was.
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shmokes

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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2011, 05:25:36 pm »
No dice.  Got a new SIM in one of the phones yesterday and it's acting the same.  Moreover, I had one phone that was initially holding onto the Microcell pretty consistently, but now it keeps associating with the regular tower and I have to pull the battery to get it to reassociate with the Microcell.  What's worse is it's a Blackberry 9700 that takes literally almost 10 minutes to cold reboot.  Dumb.  I think I'll be sending back the Microcell.
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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2011, 05:39:26 pm »
thats a shame mines been awesome, but admittedly only have tested it with an iphone. i'm guessing the technical support is lacking on them as it is over here. if you feel like looking and you haven't as yet, the vodafone forums seem to be the place for tech advice on them over here, maybe see if there are similar things in your carriers web content. the vodafone femtocell is open source too, dunno if there's something worth googling there
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Re: AT&T Microcell (aka femtocell)
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2011, 12:30:34 am »
GSM doesn't seem to be that mature over here. I'm playing with Sprint (CDMA) and T-Mobile (GSM) phones right now. GSM seems to be a little faster surfing, but I've experienced lack of net connection from within my home, three times in the week I've had it, with no change when I went outside. No such issues with Sprint.

On a side note, playing with these smart phones, both of which run Android 2.2, I can't see using a Black Berry.
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