How would you change AT&T's 3G MicroCell?
By Darren Murph 
posted November 27th 2009 11:51PM
posted November 27th 2009 11:51PM
posted November 27th 2009 11:51PM
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I am with AT&T until April 2010. When I signed up all cell networks were week at my home in Charlotte, NC. Now Verizon has upgraded their network and covers my home with 3G. Imagine how I feel when my son comes to visit and can surf the web on his network and I can't even make a call.
Along comes the Microcell promising a working signal in my home at an additional price. They offer 100.00 rebate if I sign up for 20.00 monthly service I don't need because I now have 8000 rollover minutes. I got the service planning to cancel after I get my rebate. That is really at 60.00 rebate bringing price down to $90.00.
When I got the unit and hooked it up it only took 90 minutes to begin working. But it only allowed me to make calls. The data connection would always time out. After three weeks of working with support and changing configuration from primary and back I now can access data at home. I can make calls as long as it is working but requires being rebooted once or twice a week. I only notice this when I need to make a call or miss important calls. reboot usually takes less than 30 minutes.
I still miss calls. Just yesterday I got two voice messages because my phone did not ring. Microcell was working not requiring reboot, but for some reason just did not play nice with the rest of the AT&T broken network.
The Microcell is a band-aid on a broken leg. I will use it till my contract runs out then try and sell it on ebay after switching to a stronger network. I really wanted too get an iphone but will not as long as it is tied to AT&T.
This would tend to bring to their customer an unwanted sense of liability. For instance, you ISP doesn't allow you to share your Internet service with folks not residing in your home. But allowing all iPhone users to share your Femtocell would be liability that could risk your Internet connection. If that happened, I'm sure AT&T feels confident you wouldn't blame them, but I'm not so confident. :)
How about make it less ugly.....perhaps a different color.
I bought one of these in Chapel Hill the minute it was released...my first one died on me - whenever my phone was connected to it it blocked my calls! My replacement MicroCell is doing quite well, however. Full service & fast 3G inside and all around my apartment. Having cellphone service inside the apartment is priceless...
My only complaint is that it loses signal every once in a while. This box needs to be 100% reliable...period. You get addicted/dependent to having perfect service. Also, drop the price...$150 isn't bad (w/o any service contracts) but $99 sounds better to me.
Here are my suggestions: To improve the unit.
1. Make it work on wireless.
2. Make it optional for network to send a text to my cell phone when it stops working so I would know to reboot it before missing important calls or need it in an emergency where waiting 30 to 90 minutes to reboot is not possible.
3. Price is too high. $50.00 after rebate with no monthly service required.
4. Once GPS is locked allow it to be moved from signal (basement or interior room) as long as it is still using same ISP.
They need to support more than 10 users total being able to use it and 4 simultaneously. Also they need an option to turn off the security of only 10 registered users. I want all my friends to be able to use it when they are over. Also it would be handy to have at work where anyone in the building can get on it. I get they might have to limit simultaneous users for quality, but 4 is pretty low and the registering all the users is lame.
Really they just need to stop advertising that they have the best network with the fewest dropped calls and actually spend the money on improving the network!
I've had my Microcell for about 3 weeks now. I had trouble getting it to work in the beginning because I can't get a GPS signal in my home (metal roof). AT&T was able to change some settings on the Microcell so that it only looked for a GPS signal during setup. I used an extension cable and moved it outside during setup, and then moved it back indoors.
My complaints are the same as everyone else's. Everyone agrees that AT&T's cell network is terrible. This product offered them an opportunity to win back some goodwill with their customers (by giving us free calling through the Microcell), but instead they socked it to us again.
I will dump AT&T at some point. I have a 4-phone family plan, which makes it difficult to switch. At some point all the planets will align and I will be switching to another carrier (probably Verizon) who has a decent network.
I forgot to answer the question about land lines. I would love to ditch my land line, if for no other reason than it's also with AT&T and I hate giving them so much money every month. But I'm going to have to see reliable service with the Micocell for several months before I would consider ditching my land line.
I have tried two different VoIP services (Skype and Gizmo5), and have been disappointed with both of them. I'm still looking for a good one.
So, let me get this straight. If a third party contractor approached AT&T about improving AT&T service for AT&T customers they would actually charge this third party for their help? I need to go back to school. I must have missed something.
AT&T has more of an image problem than it realizes when it comes to the network. At Thanksgiving, my 8 year old nephew told his father he wanted a cell phone, but not on AT&T because "AT&T sucks." I asked him why he thought that and he said Verizon was better "because their network is bigger." He got it from the commericals.
ATT should actually pay you for using your own internet to make phone calls, unless you get it for your bunker.
Make ATT actually pay you for using it, unless you live in the bunker.
I don't get it. AT&T is offering VOIP with this.........like vonage. only difference is, it uses your cellphone instead of a regular phone. Does Vonage give their equipment away for free? Do they charge nothing since its over you internet that you already pay for? No. Why would AT&T do that then?
I love the idea of this device and only wish they offered it in my area. AT&T has great coverage in my area but I live in a small valley in a house with metal siding. I may get one bar inside my house if I'm lucky. Sure it would be nice if it was cheaper. Shoot, it would be nice if they paid us to use it. But it would also be nice if I won the lottery and had Megan Fox waiting for me at home (don't tell my wife I said that). I will take what I can get where I can get it. This is a wonderful thing that other carriers offer. I'm just glad ATT finally came around to offering. Now make it available nation wide and I'll be happy. :)
@clipse
AT&T is not offering VOIP in the same sense. The issue is that this is to supplement coverage within your home (something that in the vast majority of cases should already exist). It should also be reliable, and unlimited within the home.
Vonage is reliable.
T-Mobile's @home is reliable (according to what I have heard).
I can't say anything for Sprint's Airave as I've never heard anything more about it beyond its existance.
AT&T's femtocell offering is, from the vast majority of reports here, not reliable.
The other issue being raised is that you are already paying for coverage. This is why people feel the service should be free (not an extra $20 every month or so). You are not paying to get unlimited calling within your home (like T-Mobile @home). Your service is not dedicated to your home (like Vonage). You are paying for an accessory that is supposed to improve your cellular phone experience within your home. This is why the issue is being raised as there is no other benefit beyond the "improved" service within the home.
I'll say this much of my thought... which is going to mirror the thought of many. In my own home (an appartment in Canada), I have 4 bars of coverage. At my aunt and uncle's place well north of where I reside, my carrier's coverage drops to 2 bars and is still very usable for both browsing and calling. At my workplace, to the south of me, I get 4 bars. The 2 hour bus-ride to my girlfriend's, I get 1 bar along the more rural parts of the highway. At my girlfriend's, I get 3 bars. All these are with no help whatsoever from a fem-to-cell option or a wi-fi calling option, because my service carrier here in Canada does not offer these. In fact, the only place I frequent that does not have decent coverage is my dad's cottage... but then again, that is so remote that the competition does not have coverage for a good hour's drive in any direction.
There is something to be said for building a decent network right from the get-go. This is not it.
@(Unverified)
Oh, I'm sorry I thought VOIP stood for Voice Over IP. Which is exactly what AT&T is doing. The only difference is that it integrates with you cellphone and cellphone number...........yeah, thats a cool feature. Voip is Voip no matter how you hash it. It is voice over my internet connection. It is the exact same as Vonage only when I'm out of my house the same number and phone works with cellular towers and network. I will admit, AT&T may not have the best network (here they are top dog and I have no complaints). But a company in general is not going to add features like voip and not want to charge a bit extra for it. It cost them to get it rolling out. I don't expect to get free phone from my cable company so why would I expect free unlimited voip from my cellular company.
Make it like T-mo's @home service. AT&T's network isn't a problem for me, but they're pretty much the highest price wireless service, yet they have the worst selection of smartphones and not the best 3G network. This box and the pricing/policies attached to it will not only further distance AT&T from the general public, it will serve to drive loyal customers to other carriers with more reasonable plans & pricing.
I had to return the AT&T Microcell because call quality was horrible. I got 5 bars throughout my house but whenever I used my cell phone, the other person would complain that they couldn't understand me every 15 seconds (my voice would sound digitized in the process also). After 28 days of use, I returned my AT&T Microcell.
I'd like to know what this thing does....
@Cam
It suffices for AT&T's failure as a telecom company.
A monthy fee for this is fail. It uses your broadband. It shouldn't put any additional strain on AT&T's network. There is no reason for a monthly fee besides greed.
I can see charging for the box, but after that any other price increase is unjustifiable. And really, a good move for AT&T to get more positive PR would be that if you can prove that you really need this (ie you don't get any coverage in your house) you should get one for free. That would help with this negative press regarding their network.
@DJ It only costs more per month if you want unlimited minutes while using it. Most people, who already have M2M, N&W, Unity, Rollover, and A-list will just use it to boost coverage and use their existing bucket of minutes.
Make it work with 7.2mbs for the 3GS, but then make a firmware update for the iPhone so it could take advantage of it, but AT&T holding it back like they did for MMS and Tethering.
I have worked in microwave research, IEEE member, teach in the sensor/wireless field, not a luddite therefore, but, know too much about effects of MF/RF stuff, few things to think/check before everyone has small cell stations in their homes:
- IAFF: These are what International Association of Fire Fighters Occupational safety division thinks about cell phone basestations, anywhere near fire stations, 24 pages.
www.iaff.org/HS/Resi/CellTowerFinal.htm
- top International researcher group Bioinitiative at University of Albany, European Union Environmental agency collaborates with the group (leading top researchers from Karolinska Hospital Stockholm, most Nobel prizes in medicine, Columbia Univ., Univ. of Washington, Univ. of Albany etc):
www.bioinitiative.org/report/index.htm
- U.S. National Institutes of Health
2.45 GHz radiofrequency fields alter gene expression in cultured human cells. S. Lee et al.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16107253
- U.S. Senate Harkin/Specter hearings at Senate Subcommittee a month ago www.c-spanarchives.org/program/288879-1
- European Union Parliament motion 549-22 for:
www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2009-0216+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
- Based on all top research, including military, the key chemicals affected by Ghz range mw signals are:
- Myelin sheets in nerve cells damaged
- blood/brain barrier (toxic/heavy metals get access to neurons)
- Acetylcholine (key ingredient for normal brain function
- Albumin leakage
- Calcium loss, as well as Zinc/Magnesium loss
- Melatonin (key for sleep, as well as recovery from DNA damage, MW causes people to need more sleep than normal, DNA recovery phase damaged, leads to initial stages of cancer9
- Double strand DNA breakup, Dr. Lai/Dr. Singh at University of Washington, Seattle, also in EU studies, at much less than normal cellphone
- Dr. Hardell, 200-400-600% more glioma on the side of the cell phone, after 10 years of use, also noted in under 18 year old, Orebro Hospital Sweden.
- Lastly, to have some fun: NOKIA has vehemently denied any Glioma risks or effects on Myelin sheets for years, but... have following 1990s patents, with interesting wording... Put following patent numbers in www.pat2pdf.org, search in downloaded PDFs with words glioma and myelin. Additionally, NOKIA/Motorola/CTIA have very much made terms "radiation" a taboo, but use the same exact term in their patent,
stemming from the non-ionizing/ionizing debate.
6,259,896 Device for radio communication
6,088,579 Device for radio communication
5,787,340 Radiation shielding apparatus for communication device
- Non-ionizing radiation/non-thermal effects
In Dr. Lai/Dr. Singh studies, doublestrand DNA breakup was achieved with microwaves (supposed to be non-ionizing, not able to do this). Following Wikipedia page is partially correct, partially incorrect, mentioning biological effects of non-ionizing microwaves at least (that is correct)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation
- 1999 Question by a 14 year old Emily at U.S. National Laboratory/Argonne www site re: microwaves/health effects, again word radiation is used... (Nokia/Motorola/CTIA appear to work with NLP specialists such as Frank Luntz?).
www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99445.htm
- Above reseacher appears to, 10 year ago, refer to a precautionary principle, now finally applied by European Union Environmental Agency below, participated in above Bioinitiative study which everyone should read first, before starting to think this or that.
www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/radiation-risk-from-everyday-devices-assessed
@hybrid
http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=19445651&imageindex=5
btw... no one cares or they would have asked
ps.
In case wattage issue is bothering anyone, biological and genotoxic effects have been noticed at power levels 100 or 1000 x less than FCC/ICNIRP/WHO standards, which are... ancient, and heavily industry lobbied... (as everyone who works high enough in the industry knows).
Modulation/waveform shape appears to be the key problem in re: cell function, not wattage, or a complex combo function of both, making things very complicated. In plain english, extremely weak mw signals can have very strong effects on human biology/cells. I am sure this is not pleasant to hear, but this is what I know via my profession.
Leading neurologists, even including well known ones such as Sanjay Gupta, Vini Kurana and others do not use cell phones next to their heads, not even Bluetooth headsets, and do not recommend them to be used.
Just purchased one of these in Raleigh, NC.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the service. Before I was getting 2 to 3 bars in various parts of the house, but 0 to 1 bars in the other parts of the house. I thought it was originally the AT&T service and thought it sucked, but I went through the other major carriers (Hero on Sprint and Droid on Verizon) and experienced the same lackluster reception. So I went back to iPhone and picked up a Micro-Cell. I get 5 bars of service throughout my house.
I have had some hiccups with the service where I have had some dropped calls or the service cuts out. I think this is just because it is beta service and I'm hoping things get ironed out before my 30 days is up!
Since the service uses my broadband, I do find that when I'm downloading a lot using usenet or bittorrent, service is bad. I knew this would happen, so I would LOVE to see an option on the phone (iPhone for me) to choose between Micro-cell or AT&T's stock 3G service.
Overall I'm happy with the service and since I work out of the house, it has proven to be very useful.
Sealos
One word: OOMA
it should be free.. It's fixing your awful service and you want me to pay for it? WTF
@kingblind
if carriers were going to give it away for free why would they even come out with one of these?
stop thinking you can get stuff for free and you wont have higher monthly bills
Here's how I would change it: let me buy it.
Please release this device nationwide. I live in a very rural area where I have no to little cell service with any provider. Verizon is currently erecting a cell tower near which puts me into a dilemma. I wish to keep AT&T for the iPhone however may be forced to switch to Verizon if I am unable to get service inside my house.
Make it free, so I don't have to buy something to improve my terrible AT&T coverage.
Instead of creating a post on "How would you change AT$T 3G Microcell," let's create a post on "How would you change AT$T?
get rid of it or give it to verizon to make it worth something
Regardless of people's points of view whether we should be paying for such a device, I just wanted to report that I'm a happy user of the MicroCell in Charlotte, NC. I actually got the device the first day it was released and it worked well in my home; but I've actually been using it at work since the first week and it has been great and near flawless in operation.
That being said, Verizon has reception at my work; however that is because Verizon has a deal with my building and has been contracted to install repeaters.
I would make it a one time charge of $50 with the purchase of a normal cell phone contract. It's complete crap that they make you pay a monthly fee to extend their network for them. It's a bunch of crap when you need to pay to help AT&T be less sucky.
Why does my profile now shows "Unverified"? Can someone help me fix this issue please?
Wow lets let the Verizon fan boys rip everything that att has to offer yay. For all of you that are complaining about price, its a business, its like paying for a satilite radio receiver then paying for the service, if you don't have service at your home i don't see why this wouldn't work even if you do have to pay for it. Everyone thats complaining look at it this way. We all work and we expect to get paid for our ability to complete our jobs. you get paid extra when you work extra, RIGHT so why is it such a big deal to pay extra when you receive extra. I live in PA and have never had a problem with ATT but Verizon and sprint both have given me gigantic headaches so think about that a little bit
Its a great idea its a shame we do not have anything like this in the Uk as far as i know. But the Only problem I can see is wireless is prone to interference unlike a hardline. And as a gamer I do not what to see the words no network coverage when trying to get onto the engadget website or playing on a game.
This concept just doesn't make sense to me.
I agree with the people who say AT&T should be paying US to deploy these things. After all, YOU pay for your home broadband network, and then when you're using minutes or data going through this thing, it still gets charged to your AT&T account. I wonder if the data used from this device goes towards the 5GB\moth cap. That would REALLY suck.
If you have a smart phone, why not just use VOIP over WIFI, and have Google Voice forward calls to your VOIP number when your cell cannot be reached (ie. you have no coverage). Much cheaper and better solution (imho). If you're interested in doing that, check out Fring, Skype, Nimbuzz -- there's a bunch of other mobile VOIP software out there too, and if you're lucky enough to have a phone with a built in SIP client, you don't even need any software at all..just need an SIP provider and that's it. The best part about this solution is you're not subsidizing AT&T's crap network with your own dollar on your OWN broadband network.
@surgex
One more thought -- I also wouldn't be surpsised if broadband ISPs (hm..Verizon FIOS maybe?) found a way to either throttle or block these entirely if they become more popular...it sounds sleezy, but didn't something similar happen when Skype \ Vonage first got popular? After all, I don't think it's fair for one provider to piggy back off of another's network without permission. AT&T, just upgrade your network for god's sake...enough with the lawsuits and lame commercials that people see right through. UPGRADE YOUR CELL TOWERS!@!
all these comments, and not a single, "Make it an iPhone..." It must be the holiday...
Needs an option to just use your normal monthly minutes/phone to phone min with no monthly fee.
I love my iPhone, I hate that I have no service at the house with it. My business phones will continue to be verizon until they add the option to use the microcell without additional fees, and I'll probably jump ship completely if the iPhone ever opens up.
I'd buy a Wi-Ex Yx 510 instead. Oh, wait, i already did!
A year ago it cost me $282 at amazon. They were selling them for 200 at macworld san fran last year, see if they're there again with bargains next february if you want one.
I hung the antenna in the attic, ran coax to a 2nd floor landing, and it's flooded my house with signal. Result: from my iPhone being genuinely unusable in the house, to averaging 4 bars and virtually no dropped calls. All the difference in the world, with no monthly fees. Shortly before a year was up the signal degraded and wi-ex replaced the unit, and the powerful flood of signal returned.
Now--should i have had to buy that so solve the problem? I don't think so. But it was worth it to me to have the phone work properly.
@rtdunham
I tried Wi-EX. I even put the antenna outside on the chimney for the best signal and bought a bigger ceiling mount internal antenna. It helped my signal in about a 10ft radius, kinda useless in a reasonable sized house.
I'm hoping the Microcell covers most of the house. If I could just get the darn thing to activate...
MAKE IT FREE, DUH.
By the way, why doesn't my user pic show up?!!! What's going on Engadget?
This should free. ATT's inability to get a strong signal into your home is not your fault or an extra service that you should pay for. They should ship these to whoever asks for one since it's their fault service sucks so bad in so many places.
I have had the 3g MicroCell since the day it was launched in Raleigh. At my house on a good day we would get 1 bar, and it had been that way for many years. The issue is around AT&T getting land and permits to add cell towers to improve the coverage.
With the MicroCell it is 5 bars all the time. It has worked perfectly and we have multiple iPhones using it. The ability to use SMS reliably has been great. And no scrambling to transfer to a landline if someone calls the cell. I also get reliable access to things like work phone directory that requires the 3G connection. I wouldn't be able to go back to before. Actually considering dropping landline.
I wasn't impressed with the coverage area, it is enough for inside the house but not enough range to be outside. They do say 5,000 square foot which is about right.
Make it 4g ... DOH!