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The AT&T 3G MicroCell Owner's Thread

TMar said:
So I would assume that your hinting at the cell pick up advertised speed somehow and capping at a % of that? It would be dumb to cap at a % of advertised speed vrs actual speed the people see.
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Not that. Hear me out.

Let's say I have one of these M-Cells. I currently have a 30/3.5 Mb/s connection from Cox Cable.

I know the M-Cell does not take all that bandwidth. I want to know how much of a percent it takes. So I am asking anyone who owns an M-Cell, to post your Internet Speeds according to your ISP and your SpeedTest screenshot of the speed on your M-Cell. Let's see if we see a pattern here.

So far, I see 1.8Mb/s in those screenshots.
 
elgrecomac said:
And I have the option to by a DATA plan as well?
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You lost me right there. You dont need to pay extra to use data on a microcell if you already have a data plan........do you??


plain and simple....3 different types of people that would need this thing.

1) all carriers in your area get crap coverage, and you just so happen to be on at&t. *this is my girlfriends situation. 60645 chicago zip code, rogers park area, and the only carrier worth a damn is US cellular (but who wants that??)

2) You're hardcore at&t and dont care that they dont care enough to do things the right way, and put a damn tower up in your area, and are giving you no alternative other than do this if you want any type of service from them.

3) you want to take advantage of the unlimited calling while at home.

I live literally across the alley from a cell site. so close that right now, my iphone in field test is -45dbm. i obviously dont need this for signal, but this could potentially save me a butt load of money.
I could ditch my landline, and not have to get an unlimited plan ($99). but, my DSL isnt that fast, 5.2 Mbps / 650 Kbps. Im sure it would be greatly affected, which sucks big time.

How much bandwidth does this thing use when on a call? for 1 user, and 2 users at once?

thats what i wanna know
 
Definitely a deal if you have terrible service, but I'm not one of those people. I can't understand anyone paying $20 a month for a service they should already have or have been paying for since day ONE when the bought their first cell phone..... :eek::(:mad:
 
I'm curious to know what the range is on this device? Also will it only work with one account? ie: Let's say we have 2 phones, but they are on different accounts, even under and different name and registered in entirely different markets.

Can one user still share it with the other?
 
For the record, my speeds with Time Warner are 10Mb up/384Kb down. Absolutely horrible upload speed, I know. I'm tired of them giving me more down speed, I need more up!
 
jav6454 said:
I mean, the speed the guy is supposed to be getting from his ISP, not the one reported by SpeedTest.
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for some reason people forget that ISP advertised speeds are for their network on the local network segment. Once you hit the internet your speed drops because you start hitting other ISP's networks and you get latency from having to compete with other traffic. most times you won't get the advertised speed on your ISP because all the DSL/cable lines will go into a central location in the town or neighborhood and then get put on a fiber or a slower circuit to another part of the network until it gets to the gateway to the internet. a lot of times you might go through 5 hops just to get to the internet.
 
alent1234 said:
for some reason people forget that ISP advertised speeds are for their network on the local network segment. Once you hit the internet your speed drops because you start hitting other ISP's networks and you get latency from having to compete with other traffic. most times you won't get the advertised speed on your ISP because all the DSL/cable lines will go into a central location in the town or neighborhood and then get put on a fiber or a slower circuit to another part of the network until it gets to the gateway to the internet. a lot of times you might go through 5 hops just to get to the internet.
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This is just downright false. The backbones that are in place to shuttle this traffic around are huge--much larger than what is on their local network segment. We're talking like OC12, OC48, and OC98 speeds here.

Granted, when it reaches the local network of where the data is destined, your limited to the bandwidth available at the destination. For example, we have 4 T1s at our office--2 T1s for EVPN, and 2 for MIS. Doesn't matter what your speed is from your ISP, you're not getting anything from our network fast than 3Mb since that is the limit of our two bonded T1s for MIS. But even the next hop up from our office in the CO, you're still dealing with T3, DS3, and OC3s at a minimum.
 
the backbones might be huge but it's not like your DSL connection goes right to the backbone. it will run to a neighborhood central switching office and from there run to a bigger central office until it finally goes out of your ISP's network. until it gets to the backbone it will probably run on copper unless you're on FIOS or your cable company has laid fiber in the local area.

i just ran a trace route to gmail from where i work and it was 16 hops. it took 4 hops just to get out from my employer's network. another 2 hops on ATT and a bunch of other IP's that i don't care to look up who they belong to.

and then you have to account for overhead of the TCP protocol as well as the crappy wifi g standard protocol. i've read that with g and earlier the protocol overhead is almost half the network traffic and they fixed this with n. and whatever protocol the iphone and speedtest uses to transfer the data. not sure about SL, but with Windows it will use SMB on the local network segment if you're on anything earlier than Vista SP1/WIndows Server 2008. now it's SMB v2 and it's literally almost twice as fast because MS got rid of a lot of the protocol overhead
 
pcguru83 said:
For the record, my speeds with Time Warner are 10Mb up/384Kb down. Absolutely horrible upload speed, I know. I'm tired of them giving me more down speed, I need more up!
Click to expand...

So out of your 384Kb/s, you have a M-Cell upload of 64Kb/s. That is more or less ~16.8% of your Upload speed.

As for the download, I think all M-Cells limit themselves to HSDPA Category 4 (1.8Mb/s) regardless if you have 10Mb/s or 1.5Mb/s
 
I have made more phone calls today (half of them being tests) and it seems like there is a 50-50 chance that while transferring from the Microcell to a cell tower that the call will drop. Is this in line with what other owners are seeing?

The other thing I've noticed is that if you start a call on the Microcell and then transfer over to another tower, the alpha tag (carrier identification) remains AT&T M-Cell, but you lose 3G. In other words once you walk out of the house and connect to the regular network, the iPhone still says you're on the Microcell, but the 3G symbol goes away and you cannot access the internet over the cell network at all (EDGE or 3G). Interesting.
 
Luigi239 said:
The other thing I've noticed is that if you start a call on the Microcell and then transfer over to another tower, the alpha tag (carrier identification) remains AT&T M-Cell, but you lose 3G. In other words once you walk out of the house and connect to the regular network, the iPhone still says you're on the Microcell, but the 3G symbol goes away and you cannot access the internet over the cell network at all (EDGE or 3G). Interesting.
Click to expand...

Until you end the call?
 
alphaod said:
I'm curious to know what the range is on this device? Also will it only work with one account? ie: Let's say we have 2 phones, but they are on different accounts, even under and different name and registered in entirely different markets.

Can one user still share it with the other?
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You can put up to 10 phone numbers in the admin tool. They are not tied to the microcell owner's account.

-Benster
 
Glad to see this thread was started. I have been looking for other folks feedback.

I have had few issues so far. I did relocate the Microcell to a spot more centrally located in the house to get a better zone of coverage. I did experience the 25 - 30 minutes of re-syncing it took when it was powered off and back on.

I have about 65 minutes on microcell calls now between my wife and I and there have been no quality issues that I have been able to tell.

We have U-Verse with 12mbit download and 1.5 mbit upload and get pretty much all of it when testing on speedtest.net.

3G is slower for data on the microcell considerably, but I just use wifi anyway. Calls seem just as clear as they do when I'm uptown (I think Gateway Village is sitting on a massive 3G repeater or something.)

I did pay the $20 to have unlimited calls added to the Family Plan, so we all have unlimited calls now.

I also use Vonage and have never really had an issue with it.

Just experimenting with this to get some consistency with the 3G signal in the house. My neighborhood is right on the edge of all or no 3G signal and bounces between them daily.

-Benster
 
Has there been any talk as to why it takes 20 - 30 minutes to sync up after a power outage? That really seems extreme.
 
alphaod said:
I'm curious to know what the range is on this device? Also will it only work with one account? ie: Let's say we have 2 phones, but they are on different accounts, even under and different name and registered in entirely different markets.

Can one user still share it with the other?
Click to expand...

I think range has been talked about in other threads - but it is 5000sqf or 40ft in any direction. Though 40 feet in any direction would assume 80ft x 80ft and that is 6400sqf.
 
hsk said:
I think range has been talked about in other threads - but it is 5000sqf or 40ft in any direction. Though 40 feet in any direction would assume 80ft x 80ft and that is 6400sqf.
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Actually the area of coverage would be a circle. A 40 ft radius is 5,024 sq ft.
 
I need HELP!!!! (to anyone who has a thought or comment)

Hey, I just bought the iphone 3gs a month ago and im experiancing some problems. I know AT&T just launched its new 3G MicroCell device and I think that might fix my problem but im not sure. I know its in its trail in N.C. but im in MAryland. but Here is my problem. Somtimes I recieve text messages like hours after the person sends it, and somtimes when people call it wont ring on my end but it will on theres and i will get a voicemail(if they leave one) like hours later. I switch my sim card and that hasnt worked so i think its my signal. Has anyone encourters these type of problems if so is there anything to fix it. I dont need a phone where i get my texts hours later and my phone dosnt ring when called. I might as well get a land line. So if anyone can help I apprecaite it.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences with this. I have bad reception at my house out in the country so I'm pretty excited about using this for voice calls at the house. Here are my questions about the Microcell:

1. What's with the GPS connection requirement? Do you really have to have it somewhere with a view of the sky the whole time it's in use? I don't want to put the device by a window, I want to put it in my network closet! If I'm buying the device outright and I'm not choosing the unlimited minutes option why does AT&T care where I use the device? I own it and I'm using my own cell plan minutes and internet connection!

2. How does the device behave if the internet connection is interrupted? We're on a wireless ISP and sometimes we lose the Internet connection for 1-15 minutes at a time. Is the system smart enough to recognize when there's no internet and allow connected phones to try to use the normal cellular network? Maybe someone with a microcell and some marginal but working cell signal could try unplugging the internet cable then making a call?

3. How quickly does the Microcell come back up after temporarily losing the internet connection? Is it automatic and instantaneous, or does it require a long wait or a manual reboot?

Thanks for any information you testers can provide!
 
Ack said:
Thanks for sharing your experiences with this. I have bad reception at my house out in the country so I'm pretty excited about using this for voice calls at the house. Here are my questions about the Microcell:

1. What's with the GPS connection requirement? Do you really have to have it somewhere with a view of the sky the whole time it's in use? I don't want to put the device by a window, I want to put it in my network closet! If I'm buying the device outright and I'm not choosing the unlimited minutes option why does AT&T care where I use the device? I own it and I'm using my own cell plan minutes and internet connection!
Click to expand...

Despite what most people here think, the GPS is used for the 911 system to determine where you are located... it is a governmental requirement. I'm pretty sure AT&T has stated that GPS is only necessary when you initially configure the device, or move it to a new location. After that you can move it away from the window.
 
I was just at my local AT&T store and heard something I had not heard before. If you get the MicroCell and decide to return it there is a $35 restocking fee. Has anyone else heard this?
 
I live in South Charlotte right on the NC/SC border and wonder if the MicroCell would work here since I have no reception at all unless I am standing near or at the window. There is not even 3G coverage down here even though it is CLT but below Westinghouse on Tryon the 3G coverage seems to end and we are all on Edge. What are your thoughts to anyone in the area.
 
By the way, I do have an iPhone and just want to know if the Microcell will connect even though the 3G coverage seems to stop 5 miles up the road.
 
This device is intended to connect to your existing internet connection and it then generates a local 3g signal using that connection to transport the calls. It doesn't matter that you don't have a 3g signal, in fact you're in exactly the situation they designed this device for.
 
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