Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The AT&T 3G MicroCell Owner's Thread

Fricking att

Can't stand their crappy service and the micro cell is not working. On phone all afternoon yesterday with support and they escalated it up to an engineer. 3 to 5 days to get a call back. What kind of service is that?!

So meanwhile micro cell just cuts out conversations. Dropped calls. Loads of fun!!!
 
RaceTripper said:
I just got one. Set it up in 30 mins. or so with activation. I made one call that got dropped while connected through it and it hasn't worked since. It's going back.
Click to expand...
It seems to have gotten better. I played around with location some. Now both the iPhones seem to hang on to it, but once in a while my iPhone loses the connection to the M-Cell and it takes a while to reconnect. I'm hoping this will work out well enough to get rid of my land line.
 
RaceTripper said:
It seems to have gotten better. I played around with location some. Now both the iPhones seem to hang on to it, but once in a while my iPhone loses the connection to the M-Cell and it takes a while to reconnect. I'm hoping this will work out well enough to get rid of my land line.
Click to expand...

It has to be dead center of your house or somewhere near there for the signal to be the same throughout. Mostly. It also has to have a GPS lock.
 
My only issue with my microcell has been that I usually get an instant "call failed" the first time I try to make a call out each day, then it goes right through the second time. I've also had a little trouble with transitioning from regular service to the microcell inside, like if I'm driving home and trying to continue a call as I walk inside.
 
Generally speaking is this device ready for 'prime time' or is it still going through growin pains?
 
S1njin said:
Generally speaking is this device ready for 'prime time' or is it still going through growin pains?
Click to expand...
I would say it's ready for primetime. As I mentioned above, I only have those minor issues with it. But I receive calls just fine with 4-5 bars all over my 3100 sf house.
 
I just picked up a microcell yesterday after realizing they were selling them nationally.

It took a while for activation, but it's all ready to go now. It worked at first, then the GPS and 3g lights blinked alternately. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, and the signal was going again. I checked this morning and it was fine. Hopefully I can just set it and forget it. I don't want to have to unplug it often.

I purchased it outright for $150. It's not the best deal ever, but I think long term, it is a good investment if you plan on keeping it for a couple years. It would only come out to $6/month. Small price to pay for no dropped calls in your home.

I can't justify the $20 monthly fee because our household doesn't use cell phones a ton anyway, it just doesn't make sense.
 
jacksonian said:
My only issue with my microcell has been that I usually get an instant "call failed" the first time I try to make a call out each day, then it goes right through the second time. I've also had a little trouble with transitioning from regular service to the microcell inside, like if I'm driving home and trying to continue a call as I walk inside.
Click to expand...

The Microcell can pass a call to a local tower as you LEAVE your house, but you can't pass a call back to the Microcell.
 
DOWN link audio consistently garbled. Intermittent immediate Call Failed when dialing out. Replaced unit, moved it, etc. Still having same problem. I'm clearly not the only one with EXACT issue.:mad:
 
Wonder if its their servers that are overloaded ... ever since they went nationwide i've seen problems reported by people ...
 
Yesterday, our two iPhone 4s arrived. I had to 'deactivate' and reactivate my microcell to get my phone to use it. The wife's had no problem but mine would never recognize it until it was reactivated.

I didn't try removing my number and re-inserting it. I just saw a thread on the ATT forum that a couple of people went the deactivate route.
 
dennisj00 said:
Yesterday, our two iPhone 4s arrived. I had to 'deactivate' and reactivate my microcell to get my phone to use it. The wife's had no problem but mine would never recognize it until it was reactivated.

I didn't try removing my number and re-inserting it. I just saw a thread on the ATT forum that a couple of people went the deactivate route.
Click to expand...

What is the proceedure to deactivate and reactivate please?
 
I was wondering. If you're on the MicroCell can you DL apps larger then 10MB just like you're on wifi?
 
I also got 2 new iphones yesterday and one immediately found the microcell and the other wouldn't. Tried turning on/off the phone and microcell to no avail. Went to ATT website to manage my 3G microcell and deleted my number, then added it back. That worked. Lucky for me that my number wasn't the primary undeletable number.
 
DotCom2 said:
What is the proceedure to deactivate and reactivate please?
Click to expand...

Sharkzfan answered it ^^ . . . On your wireless account 'Manage your Microcell' or something like that.

I did have to deactivate because my number is the main account # and I couldn't remove it.

It takes 30 minutes or so but you get a text message when it's ready. We had left the house and once we returned the phones worked fine.

I had also rebooted the Microcell a couple of times after the new phone activation.
 
jeremy.king said:
Doubt it. What would be the point? If you have a microcell, you have a high speed connection - use that instead.
Click to expand...

Right, and what I'm asking is since it is a high speed connection can you download larger apps or updates over it (10MB+)...just like wifi. Or if you get the must connect to wifi or dl through iTunes.:confused:
 
Anyone using the 3G MicroCell for data doesn't get it. And unless they have the unlimited data plan they're also wasting away the bandwidth they paid for.
 
I bought two iphones yesterday and bought a Microcell today. I love it! I now have 5 bars in the house!

Also, when I bought the Microcell, I was intending not to get a plan. But, apparently, the plan is not on a contract and you can go month to month with it. So, the salesguy suggested I signup for the plan, get the $100 rebate on the Microcell and then cancel the plan when I get the rebate in a month or so.
 
I was hoping my experience would the microcell would improve after I got the iPhone 4, but it didn't

I am having a few problems, first of all....I break up like crazy to the person on the other line, even if I am standing 5 ft away from it. Also, the other person breaks up like crazy

then, after a few minutes (pretty much every time) there is a "whooshing" sound that goes on for about 10 seconds, then drops the call

I cannot go 30 ft away from it without it dropping the signal down to 1-2 bars, and completely dropping the call / having lag. However this may be because of the fact that all my walls are concrete.

Could this be a defective unit?

I called the AT&T store I bought it from, asking what the exchange policy is, they said since I bought it over 30 days ago I would need to speak with a manager.....****
 
Yesterday we got 3 iPhone 4's to replace a 3g and a 3gs that had spotty reception in a basement apartment.

Picked up a Microcell as well to remedy the service situation. Cell activated fine after 30 mins, good GPS and 3G lights. Both phones show AT&T M-Cell now, and inbound calls work great.

Outbound calls don't work. At all. Call failed on every call.

Call T today, but first level was just 'reboot phones, reboot cell', etc. Will try it, but not hopeful.
 
John A said:
Yesterday we got 3 iPhone 4's to replace a 3g and a 3gs that had spotty reception in a basement apartment.

Picked up a Microcell as well to remedy the service situation. Cell activated fine after 30 mins, good GPS and 3G lights. Both phones show AT&T M-Cell now, and inbound calls work great.

Outbound calls don't work. At all. Call failed on every call.

Call T today, but first level was just 'reboot phones, reboot cell', etc. Will try it, but not hopeful.
Click to expand...

What's your upload/download rate?
 
AbSoluTc said:
What's your upload/download rate?
Click to expand...

On wifi I get 14000 kbps down, 5000 kbps up.

On 3g / Microcell I get 1500 down, 50 kbps up.

(So it seems like it's not a bandwidth problem.)

Just called AT&T and they had me reboot the router, reboot the microcell, reboot our phones, etc. Then they said they're having some kind of microcell related outage that is probably preventing us from routing calls off our microcell to the world.
 
jettie1767 said:
I bought two iphones yesterday and bought a Microcell today. I love it! I now have 5 bars in the house!

Also, when I bought the Microcell, I was intending not to get a plan. But, apparently, the plan is not on a contract and you can go month to month with it. So, the salesguy suggested I signup for the plan, get the $100 rebate on the Microcell and then cancel the plan when I get the rebate in a month or so.
Click to expand...

The $100 rebate requires a 2 year agreement.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back