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AT&T 3G MicroCell Site Goes Live, Monthly Fees to Be Up to $19.99?

greenpaz said:
I'm going to bypass your idiot comment and just note that the service is not "free" if you have to pay $150 in order to use it. People like you are throwing the word "free" around here as if you're AT&T hacks. Ain't gonna fly with the educated. Now back to grade school, you!
Click to expand...

The idiot comment is for if you don't understand.

Again, you screwed up. Where did I ever say it's FREE? Exactly, I didn't! You're putting words in my mouth now to try and create an argument.

it's quite simple, people have been parading around here, saying it's outrageous that AT&T charges $20 a month on top of the $150 purchase in order to use the Microcell, and that simply isn't true. The truth is you buy it once and then you are done paying for it. It's simple. Posts where people are saying "wow, sucks to be an AT&T customer in the US and have to pay $20 a month to fix their crappy network" are based on 100% fallacy.
 
So the $60K question is, how long do you think before they offer this elsewhere, not just NC?
 
PaulieORF said:
The idiot comment is for if you don't understand.

Again, you screwed up. Where did I ever say it's FREE? Exactly, I didn't! You're putting words in my mouth now to try and create an argument.

it's quite simple, people have been parading around here, saying it's outrageous that AT&T charges $20 a month on top of the $150 purchase in order to use the Microcell, and that simply isn't true. The truth is you buy it once and then you are done paying for it. It's simple. Posts where people are saying "wow, sucks to be an AT&T customer in the US and have to pay $20 a month to fix their crappy network" are based on 100% fallacy.
Click to expand...

The issue is, I shouldn't pay for minutes or data used through the microcell. AT&T didn't pay for my cable modem or service in any way, so they shouldn't charge me for the minutes I use via that device.
 
iphones4evry1 said:
Right now, I use my iPhone in my house, with unlimited mobile-to-mobile, more night and weekend minutes than I know what to do with, and more rollover minutes than I can count... and AT&T actually thinks I'm going to pay an upfront fee of $150 plus $20 per month IN ADDITION to what I already pay???

Are they out of their !$#$#%#$#@#$#$#$# MINDS ???????????? :eek::eek::eek:

This is perhaps THE WORST public relations mistake they could have made. With AT&T's image already tarnished, this is like squirting lighter fluid on an out of control camp fire. This move by AT&T is social suicide.
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JEEZUZ! NOT ANOTHER PERSON THAT CAN'T READ.
You would NOT, and I repeat, NOT pay an additional $20 per month!
This device is for people who get poor service within their home/office.
You said yourself you have tons of rollover minutes so why on earth would you get the OPTIONAL, repeat, OPTIONAL unlimited minutes per month???
You would just buy the unit itself and use your plan minutes which you said you have plently of!
 
terraphantm said:
The issue is, I shouldn't pay for minutes or data used through the microcell. AT&T didn't pay for my cable modem or service in any way, so they shouldn't charge me for the minutes I use via that device.
Click to expand...

But you are paying for them to allow you to use a PBX/PSTN in the transaction. So why should your PBX/PSTN usage be free?
 
GQB said:
So the $60K question is, how long do you think before they offer this elsewhere, not just NC?
Click to expand...
It's already available in the following 22 states:

Alabama
Arkansas
California
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Michigan
Mississippi
Missouri
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Wisconsin
 
Glideslope said:
VERIZON HELP US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on Apple. The jump from the Chinese WCDMA to a Verizon CDMA receiver is not HUGE.

at&t- America's Tethered Titanic. :apple:
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The WCDMA receiver in the Chinese iPhone is the exact same found in the iPhone 3G and 3GS. WCDMA and CDMA are two entirely different things.
 
greenpaz said:
This $150 device is AT&T's way of telling us service won't really improve unless you pony up.
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AT&T dumped $38 billion dollars over the last two years into improving service, and plans on spending $17-$18 billion just this year for service improvements.

$18 billion dollars = every single cent earned from 15 million iPhone customers, assuming they pay $100/month.

I don't think AT&T has 15 million iPhone customers.

I'm not here to defend their network. I have issues with it daily, where I work. I think Apple would have been wise to not make the iPhone an AT&T exclusive.

On the other hand, I see no point for people like you come along and post crap that implies AT&T isn't doing anything to improve their service, or that with the advent of this microcell, they're going to stop working on improving it.
 
corywoolf said:
Funny, T-Mobile has had this for years. Good to see it added for AT&T though. But that's a lot of money for the service.
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Remember, T-Mobile doesn't offer a free option (you always have to pay a monthly fee, although you do get unlimited minutes with it), and you have to have a WiFi phone.

AT&T is a little different in that they do offer a free option (in addition to the monthly fee that gives you unlimited minutes), and it works with any of their 3G phones, not just the more expensive WiFi models.
 
Holy **** people, read the details!

This costs ABSOLUTELY NOTHING extra per month if you want to use your existing plan minutes.

If you pay 20 dollars a month, you get unlimited minutes as long as you're on the MicroCell. If you use a lot of minutes in your home, you can decrease your monthly rate plan, add this thing on, and possibly end up paying LESS per month than you already are.

Are we clear now? No, I didn't think so. Continue the bitchfest.
 
I do

satcomer said:
Does anyone use the ThinkGeek Cell Phone Extender and live within a 3g area?
Click to expand...

I use the cheaper version of this product, the one that can be had for 60$ on amazon, and it works well AS DESCRIBED meaning it works very well within about 10 ft . of the unit. This unit will cover a house and I have no reason to think it wouldn't works AS WELL as the one I have which does.
 
yg17 said:
Holy **** people, read the details!

This costs ABSOLUTELY NOTHING extra per month if you want to use your existing plan minutes.

If you pay 20 dollars a month, you get unlimited minutes as long as you're on the MicroCell. If you use a lot of minutes in your home, you can decrease your monthly rate plan, add this thing on, and possibly end up paying LESS per month than you already are.

Are we clear now? No, I didn't think so. Continue the bitchfest.
Click to expand...

we could use more posts saying the same things over and over :)
 
tivoboy said:
I use the cheaper version of this product, the one that can be had for 60$ on amazon, and it works well AS DESCRIBED meaning it works very well within about 10 ft . of the unit. This unit will cover a house and I have no reason to think it wouldn't works AS WELL as the one I have which does.
Click to expand...
I used the more expensive Amazon one here (which looks like the ThinkGeek one) and didn't have much luck with it. The phones would show more signal, but the calls would still drop. I didn't want to spend the time figuring out which kind of directional antenna would help with the problem, so I ended up returning it for a refund, which worked out as AT&T put a new tower up less than a mile away shortly thereafter. Oye. :)
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
paj said:
It's already available in the following 22 states:

Alabama
Arkansas
California
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Michigan
Mississippi
Missouri
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Wisconsin
Click to expand...

Where did you get this from? I put in multiple Connecticut zip codes and the website says it's not available.
 
First Impressions

Ok, no flames for me being "an idiot" for buying one of these things. I'm a techno-geek and I love toys.

It took about 30 minutes after installation to "sync-up". I have two iPhones on individual plans so I set one up for the $20 unlimited (my wife's phone, she's "stay at home") and left my plan standard.

Once the cell activates, her phone says "AT&T Extend" instead of "AT&T" in the carrier signal area and mine says "AT&T M-CELL".

I used to have 2-3 varying bars of 3G signal, now I have 5 solid. Calls sound great.

As far as coverage, we have a 3500 sq foot house, I can get the Microcell signal full strength anywhere in the house EXCEPT, for the room over the garage, where it fails over to regular 3G (farthest point from the Microcell.)

This is very similar to the range of our 5.4 Ghz phones. I had to buy a separate base for the room over the garage because of similar signal issues when I got that far from the 5.4 Ghz base station.

All in all, probably not worth $150 for the level of signal we were getting, but worth $50 (I get the $100 rebate) and hoping the $19.99 will go down after the national roll out since I am a U-Verse customer too.

-Benster
 
satcomer said:
Does anyone use the ThinkGeek Cell Phone Extender and live within a 3g area?
Click to expand...

Yep. Be aware it's not a "ThinkGeek" cell phone extender, the product is by Wi-Ex. ThinkGeek's selling it, as does Amazon, and, I think, the mfr directly.

I use mine in Florida not in the "boonies" as some have referred to here but in the middle of a metropolitan area (st petersburg). There's good service very close by but i'm in an inexplicably bad area (no apparent geographic obstacles) that even the workers at my nearest ATT store knew about: a former store manager had lived there and his service didn't work there either! Repeated calls to ATT customer support brought promises of re-directed antenna but nothing ever changed with my (non-)service.

So...the multi-band Wi-Ex YX510 boosted my service from barely one bar and unusable service to 3 to 5 bars, 3G or not (I installed the antenna in the attic and ran coax down to a landing between the first and second floors: the install instructions make clear that mounting the antenna outside gives better results; for a variety of reasons that wasn't an acceptable solution for me). The immediate change in my ATT service was great. I say "was" because after my last trip to my florida place (I go back and forth) I'd lost the signal boost. I called Wi-Ex and we swapped the bad device for a new one. I won't be back in florida for 3 1/2 weeks so I can't swear the problem's solved, but I'd bet it is. So: a great product AND what i suspect will prove to be great customer service.

I do strongly object to having to pay $300 (the price when i bought mine) (or $150 for the femtocell) for service i had every reason to expect at my townhouse. I was a mile or two from a big ATT "more bars in more places" billboard. Uh-huh.
 
yg17 said:
No it's not. Your call is still going across AT&T's network, it's just entering it at a different point (the internet rather than a cell tower). It still costs money to route your calls.
Click to expand...
I wonder if Verizon doesn't offer an unlimited calling plan for their MicroCell because they figured a large percentage of their customers would go nutso like this thread?!
 
Actually, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint let you use the minutes pool for free. I'm not sure about Verizon, but if everyone else does it free, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. With T-Mobile, you have to have a Wi-Fi phone that supports UMA to do that, since they don't sell femtocells.

So that leads me to this: Why are you paying a phone company for a device to compensate in their failure to serve you? They should be BEGGING YOU to take that femtocell for free.
 
PaulieORF said:
Wow, this entire discussion about pricing makes me want to give up on the internet for good. It's bordering on hilarious now. Some of you people need to go back to school.
Click to expand...

A vast majority of them just left, so I say we end No Child Left Behind and move these folks into trades like Sewing, Basket Weaving, Pool Cleaning, Sewer and other necessary careers that don't require the use of much brain power.
 
yg17 said:
No it's not. Your call is still going across AT&T's network, it's just entering it at a different point (the internet rather than a cell tower). It still costs money to route your calls.
Click to expand...

I think it's something that can validly be argued, but I agree with you, there is still plenty of AT&T infrastructure that these calls go through. In my opinion, it's perfectly fine. My whole thing here today was about people who were arguing that $20 a month for Microcell service is a ripoff, which of course is not a valid argument since there is no such charge.
 
Benster said:
Ok, no flames for me being "an idiot" for buying one of these things. I'm a techno-geek and I love toys.

It took about 30 minutes after installation to "sync-up". I have two iPhones on individual plans so I set one up for the $20 unlimited (my wife's phone, she's "stay at home") and left my plan standard.

Once the cell activates, her phone says "AT&T Extend" instead of "AT&T" in the carrier signal area and mine says "AT&T M-CELL".

I used to have 2-3 varying bars of 3G signal, now I have 5 solid. Calls sound great.

As far as coverage, we have a 3500 sq foot house, I can get the Microcell signal full strength anywhere in the house EXCEPT, for the room over the garage, where it fails over to regular 3G (farthest point from the Microcell.)

This is very similar to the range of our 5.4 Ghz phones. I had to buy a separate base for the room over the garage because of similar signal issues when I got that far from the 5.4 Ghz base station.

All in all, probably not worth $150 for the level of signal we were getting, but worth $50 (I get the $100 rebate) and hoping the $19.99 will go down after the national roll out since I am a U-Verse customer too.

-Benster
Click to expand...

Benster,
How far would you say the room over your garage is from the Microcell?
Thanks
 
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