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Bad service in your house? CHECK THIS OUT!

adam044

adam044

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
1,095
10
Boston
So I've had AT&T for about 10 years now and have always lived in the same house which I've never been able to get above 2 bars. I will sometimes maybe peak at 3 bars but very rare. So I finally decided to give AT&T a call and see what they could do. They said they would give me a MicroCell for free and it should greatly help with the service, so they credited my account for $200 and I went to AT&T the next day to pick it up.
Just finished setting it up, very simple plug into the wall and plug the ethernet cable into the microcell and then into your current modem and your done! Wait about 20 mins and its activated. No monthly fee or anything. I now get full 5 bars around my entire house! No dropped calls or anything. Using it with my iPhone 5, it supports up to 4 devices at a time. So if you dont get great service I highly recommend it!
 
adam044 said:
So I've had AT&T for about 10 years now and have always lived in the same house which I've never been able to get above 2 bars. I will sometimes maybe peak at 3 bars but very rare. So I finally decided to give AT&T a call and see what they could do. They said they would give me a MicroCell for free and it should greatly help with the service, so they credited my account for $200 and I went to AT&T the next day to pick it up.
Just finished setting it up, very simple plug into the wall and plug the ethernet cable into the microcell and then into your current modem and your done! Wait about 20 mins and its activated. No monthly fee or anything. I now get full 5 bars around my entire house! No dropped calls or anything. Using it with my iPhone 5, it supports up to 4 devices at a time. So if you dont get great service I highly recommend it!
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thats great. I have verizon and have never had an issue until i got an iphone 4. always drops calls. i tell verizon and they just need to do more research. never can figure it out. call us back when you have 5 more dropped calls.
 
I've had it for awhile now but have you noticed any delay's in phone calls going out? I get that a lot and sometimes even fails to get the call out at all.
 
bhigh8 said:
thats great. I have verizon and have never had an issue until i got an iphone 4. always drops calls. i tell verizon and they just need to do more research. never can figure it out. call us back when you have 5 more dropped calls.
Click to expand...

Verizon also has them, my neighbor has something similar for Verizon

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Smin said:
I've had it for awhile now but have you noticed any delay's in phone calls going out? I get that a lot and sometimes even fails to get the call out at all.
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Haven't noticed any delays, hasn't even been a day yet so we will see

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Sorry I just assumed this hadn't been talked about

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kas23 said:
It all depends on who you talk to. Most reps will absolutely not give you one for free, some do though.

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That link is fascinating and all.
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Yup 100% free. I actually made $5 because my bill is $205 a month about and they credited the full amount, and the M Cell was only $200
Got lucky I guess
 
LapsangSouchong said:
Is AT&T giving these away because they are essentially worthless with LTE? I gotta wonder...
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I'm guessing if you have the high speed net to run the microcell, the people using them would be connected to it via wifi rather than LTE anyway, wouldn't they?
 
This is fine for voice but be careful with data ... If you turn off wifi on your phone and use 3G data which would get routed thru your ISP it still counts against your usage. I guess that's the same even if you didn't have the microcell.
 
LapsangSouchong said:
I'm assuming folks need their PHONES, which don't run on wifi.
Click to expand...

Yeeaaaah, but, if a user wants data on their iPhone, it makes sense to use Wifi for that purpose, which they presumably already have if they have broadband to connect a microcell to.

Unfortunately, AT&T counts microcell 3G data against your monthly usage, which means you'll get throttled if you go over on the "unlimited" plan, and additional charges if you go over on a capped plan... even though it's technically going through your internet connection in the first place. So basically, you're paying twice for your internet connection. To add insult to injury, using 3G data over a microcell is really slow, typically no faster than 384kbps.

So, it makes sense to use your microcell just for voice calls, and make sure your iPhone is on Wifi for data, thus avoiding microcell data usage.

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LapsangSouchong said:
Is AT&T giving these away because they are essentially worthless with LTE? I gotta wonder...
Click to expand...

The whole idea behind a microcell is that cell coverage where you're using it is supposed to be really poor, or nonexistent. So, it's doubtful they'd have LTE there anyway.

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Smin said:
I've had it for awhile now but have you noticed any delay's in phone calls going out? I get that a lot and sometimes even fails to get the call out at all.
Click to expand...

It's all depending on your internet connection. If you have high latency on your internet connection, you're going to get lengthy delays on your voice calls because it's taking longer for the packets to get to AT&T. This is also a problem if your upstream bandwidth is slow. You're most likely to have this problem on DSL, because they offer kinda-fast download speeds, but really slow upload. A microcell needs fast download AND upload to work well.
 
It charges you for data and voice sent through it on your own internet service... no wonder they give it out for free! Oh well, it's pretty useful for receiving calls.
 
I was given a MC by att because of the service or lack there of at my home.... I thought it was total crap. Delay in connection sometimes and other delay issues caused me to disconnect it about 1/2 hour after I set it up.
 
I just got off the phone with AT&T after reading this post and they are sending me one for free (including tax and shipping)!

I only get around one or two bars in my home, so I'm looking forward to this thing.

The representatives were some of the most polite and helpful people I have ever dealt with!
 
We got ours for free too because we live on the edge of town near the foothills. There definitely is a slight delay when making outgoing calls but it's better than not being able to make or receive calls at all. Before we had the Microcell we were lucky if we could get our phones to connect at all, much less actually sustain a phone call for any decent amount of time. Our house is a total dead zone for all carriers. I have friends and family on all of the big carriers and none of them can get service at our place.
 
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