AT&T/Cisco MicroCell: FAR more trouble than it's worth

[CZroe]

OK, even though the most recent trouble has not been conclusively linked to this total piece of crap, it was still the breaking point for me and I will no longer be using it. I can't believe they charge people for this junk.

Anyway, it's supposed to make a miniature cell of 3G cellular network coverage in your home or wherever you install it using your broadband Internet connection. It plugs in between your modem and your router to ensure QOS (Quality of Service) and so it will not allow excessive Internet traffic to cause it to drop packets. Even so, I have perfectly clean computers that haven't been running or downloading anything when the problems occur.

So, the point of this thing is to fill a dead spot so that you can make calls. It fails MISERABLY at this. First of all, registered phones will usually not connect without toggling airplane mode on and off. That's a pain and it means that the call you were already on when you got home and walked inside will need to be disconnected and re-established. Might as well re-establish it on your land line, because not only will it drop any call when you drive away from it no matter how strong the surrounding tower signals are, but you likely can't maintain a connection even when sitting right next to the damned thing. Even when it does, the other party will usually hang up on you because they stopped being able to hear you even though you can hear them fine and you have a perfect signal. I've found that the combination of these problems is FAR more frustrating than just stepping outside, which only helped before installing the MicroCell because now you can't force your phone to get off it. Even if you unplug the MicroCell, you kill your whole home's Internet connection (router runs through it, remember?).

But, here's the kicker: When I got my Xperia PLAY 4G last year, I noticed that the battery sometimes died in under 8 hours when I went to sleep at home but could usually last for days. I exchanged it and the next didn't seem to have that problem until about a month later when it caused me to miss an alarm and be late for work. I exchanged it again and caught it trying to do it a few more times over the next few months. My only clue is that it only seems to happen at home near the MicroCell.

So, here's what made me frustrated enough to post this: I recently moved to 1st shift from the graveyard shift and this morning was my second day working it. I set my alarm for 06:10AM at about 01:30AM and got a message saying that the alarm was set to go off 4 hours and 37 minutes from then. That's more sleep than I was used to getting when I was on the grave shift, but it was still too little time to further reduce by going to get my charge cables from the car or setting up a second alarm. Instead, I checked my battery life and found that it had been steadily at a little over half-full since I had last charged it over 8.5 hours earlier, before I left to my brother's place for dinner and a movie. I was confident that it would last another 4.5 hours and, just to be sure, I disabled WiFi and Bluetooth. I woke up at 06:37 when a family member asked if I had work today. That was WAY too late to get to work on time. To throw more onto the fire, if there were no one at home to wake me, the people waiting for me at work would not have been able to reach me at all (phone's dead, remember?).

Anyway, I had to charge it in the car to boot and call into work. I took this snapshot as soon as I could.



The first sharp dip is where I watched Youtube videos in the back yard until it got to 5%. I then charged it until it got well over 50% and I took it off to leave. I couldn't tell that it immediately began dropping fast because you only have a numeric battery percentage when you are charging (WHY?!). I could only tell that it was still showing a little more than half. I went to my brother's and came home, completely oblivious to the problem having started and you can see it immediately resume.

Whatever the funky MicroCell is triggering my phone's cellular radios to do, it is destroying my batteries and could have cost me my job if my boss weren't so understanding. Who can tolerate living with this thing in their home?! Not me. I yanked it today. I've tested it with iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY 4G R800at and all the other issues are verified to be universal (present with any handset).

[ai4px]

My mom got one of these devices free from our local phone company. It does not hand off well to the cell network, resulting in a disconnected call when she walks outside her house. It doesn't work most of the time.... for months when I'd call her and couldn't hear her, she's unplug and reset it. It became so frequent, she just leaved it unplugged.

I too live in a rural area and instead got a cell repeater. Be sure to get the directional antenna kid. It's about $350 plus another $100 for the antennas nad has worked well about this house ofr 3 yrs.

[Jiggles]

Hey there, I sell these (Actually I usually give them away for free, an innocent white lie to the manager makes them free ) Now then, the micro cell is meant to be used in an area with no cell signal. If there is any signal from towers (even 1 bar) they will interfere with eachother and it won't work for crap. Now if you have dead zones in your certain parts of your home but not in others, you won't get good performance out of this thing, it requires complete dead zones to work. Because of this it makes sense that it does not hand off well to full cell towers. If you are in an area with overlapping microcell and tower signals, you are going to have problems.

Most likely overlapping signal is what's causing a lot of your problems, your phone is trying to say WTF DO I CONNECT TO IDK **** MY PANTS. If you are in a total dead zone and you are getting this type of performance out of it, then you need a new one. This is not typical, and I haven't ever had a customer with a situation similar to you. If it's under warranty take it to a warranty center and get it replaced.

Now onto your phone. C'mon dude, you have a smartphone, charge it every day. Plug it in when you go to bed, it's silly not to and it will take 2 seconds and solve all of your phone death problems. I see people trying to treat smartphones like old cell phones that would easily last a week, it's not going to happen on your smartphone, just charge it each day, its simple.

Also, fully charge your battery or you will shorten the battery life of the phone

[CynicalC]

Seems like the thing is a huge piece of crap. But I agree with jiggles that it's silly not to have your phone plugged in and charging while you're asleep, especially if it's your alarm clock. You can probably find a charger for your phone on amazon for like $1.99 shipped.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Hey there, I sell these (Actually I usually give them away for free, an innocent white lie to the manager makes them free ) Now then, the micro cell is meant to be used in an area with no cell signal. If there is any signal from towers (even 1 bar) they will interfere with eachother and it won't work for crap. Now if you have dead zones in your certain parts of your home but not in others, you won't get good performance out of this thing, it requires complete dead zones to work. Because of this it makes sense that it does not hand off well to full cell towers. If you are in an area with overlapping microcell and tower signals, you are going to have problems.

Most likely overlapping signal is what's causing a lot of your problems, your phone is trying to say WTF DO I CONNECT TO IDK **** MY PANTS. If you are in a total dead zone and you are getting this type of performance out of it, then you need a new one. This is not typical, and I haven't ever had a customer with a situation similar to you. If it's under warranty take it to a warranty center and get it replaced.

Now onto your phone. C'mon dude, you have a smartphone, charge it every day. Plug it in when you go to bed, it's silly not to and it will take 2 seconds and solve all of your phone death problems. I see people trying to treat smartphones like old cell phones that would easily last a week, it's not going to happen on your smartphone, just charge it each day, its simple.

Also, fully charge your battery or you will shorten the battery life of the phone

With the MicroCell off, I've got "No Service" throughout the home. Even when I step outside, it fluctuates between "No Service" and connected with no bars. (front porch), "No Service" (back yard), and working well enough (driveway). With the MicroCell on, I can step outside and stand right outside the wall that the MicroCell is against and have "No Signal," even when I can see it through the window (low power can't make it through glass or metallic exterior siding). Regardless, I can find no justifiable reason for the one-sided conversations when I'm sitting next to it with a perfect signal. Often I will re-establish the call and they can hear me say a few words more before I go completely silent to them again even though I can hear their every word flawlessly.

As far as charging, I don't think you understand: I got as much charge into the battery as the moment allowed for. The realities were that I had to leave and I wasn't going to leave without my phone and it had plenty of charge for what I needed. Also, I have a spare OEM Sony Ericsson BST41 battery in a Sony Ericsson EP900 charger that I keep fully charged. The problem was NOT inability to charge. The problem was that something was triggering it to run completely dead in only a few hours and that something only happens when in range of the MicroCell. When the problem is triggered, a fully 100% charged battery will die in LESS than your typical 8-hour sleep cycle, even with the phone locked, screen off, and CPU asleep with WiFi/Bluetooth off and no apps running. I use the phone specifically because I can place it next to my pillow (I'm hard of hearing) and check it when I wake throughout the night and snooze or change the alarm as circumstances change. Having to get out of bed and turn a light on to manage a second alarm would only further reduce my sleep time.

The bigger threat to battery life is the drastic drain necessitating more charge cycles. Lithium Ion Polymer batteries actually get their longest life (total watt-hours over all cycles) when only charged about 75% average per cycle as the capacity they lose per cycle will be minimal. The level the battery controller allows as "100%" is a trade-off between that and maximum capacity per cycle. The only problem that comes from not allowing a full charge is that the battery controller can get out of calibration, which is guaranteed to happen when I switch to my gang-charged spare battery. One full discharge/charge cycle will fix it. This is why I only switch when I can't get to a charger. That day, I could get to one, so I didn't switch and charged it instead for as long as I could. In less than 30 minutes, I went from 5% to about 60% (something over half) and you can see that it immediately started nose-diving. The thing is, you COULDN'T see that with the battery indicator in the status bar, which is why I am angry with Google for not standardizing a numeric battery indicator even though it clearly knows and displays the percentage when charging (lock screen only). Because of this, all I knew was that it was "a little over half" when I took it off charge, "a little over half" when I left home, "a little over half" when I returned home several hours later, and "a little over half" when I set my alarm and went to sleep. It had just gone 8.5 hours without changing from "a little over half" and the alarm app had just stated that the alarm was set for only 4.5 hours, so there should have been no reason for concern except for this infrequent malfunction that seems impossible to predict and hard to avoid even when taking precautions. The reason I turned off WiFi and Bluetooth was "just in case" the level was inaccurate or if this very issue happened. I was aware of the issue and had even exchanged the phone because of it but I last saw it a couple months ago and could not confirm that it was still a problem without catching it again. Too bad it caught me.

Believe it or not, but I unplugged and took my battery cable out of the car but noticed that I didn't have it when I made it to my door with my hands full. I believed that I must have dropped it after unplugging it but I needed sleep and decided that it was not worth going back to the car for after assessing the time and battery life. When I was late for work, I didn't have the time to look for it. As it turns out, it was not in the car when I got to work, so I must have dropped it in the yard and I still haven't found it. To charge on the way, I used a spare 1-foot microUSB cable from my laptop bag which I had also intentionally left packed in the car. So, you could say that this was "caused" by dropping my cable, but it does not change the fact that there was a malfunction that caused my battery to tank for no reason. You should see the graph on my phone since then. It's like a flat line, all the way across! Something was BADLY wrong.

[Jiggles]

Your microcell is ****ed up, that's not how it's supposed to work. Have you had it less than a year? If so call an AT&T store and find out where the nearest warranty center is. Being it to them and get a new one. The microcells are far from perfect but they do work.

I can't help but blame your interesting battery life decisions. Just plug it in next to your bed at night, problem solved. If you think that will reduce your batteries lifetime, well new batteries are not that expensive, it's not worth being late to work.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Your microcell is ****ed up, that's not how it's supposed to work. Have you had it less than a year? If so call an AT&T store and find out where the nearest warranty center is. Being it to them and get a new one. The microcells are far from perfect but they do work.

I can't help but blame your interesting battery life decisions. Just plug it in next to your bed at night, problem solved. If you think that will reduce your batteries lifetime, well new batteries are not that expensive, it's not worth being late to work.

I was still in San Diego when my brother and mother paid for it (all on the same family plan). Pretty sure it was more than a year old before I even got this phone. I doubt it's defective because I see many people complaining about all the other issues but the battery issue is probably something specific to how certain phone chipset radios/basebands interact with it and it's tough to trigger even with a susceptible model, like mine.

I'm not saying that I don't leave it on charge because of the effect on batteries or the expense of replacing it. Indeed, I usually leave it on charge because I usually have my cable. I'm saying that it's wearing my battery out when it discharges as I carry it around to actually USE it/receive calls (kind of the whole point of a MicroCell).

Being unable to carry my fully charged phone around without the battery level sometimes sinking like a brick in water just because I'm near the MicroCell cannot be blamed on my charge habit, so don't confuse the alarm as the only affected scenario. It's just the one that ticked me off. The alarm issue has happened three times in about 5 months despite having exactly the routine you suggest. I'm not saying that it doesn't solve the problem on a case-by-case basis. I'm saying that, in 5 months, you may not always be able to follow your own routine and you should be able to use your phone off the cord without this happening. For example, I've had to sleep in other rooms on occasion or my laptop with USB power while off was below 10% (turns off the feature) or all the power outlets close to the bed were need for something else for the night or I needed to use the MicroUSB cable to charge something else that I needed when I got up. A better suggestion would be to turn on airplane mode when I sleep in that situation, which isn't always an option either when you need to be available.

Thanks though.

[Jiggles]

Welp, get a new microcell. There are employees at my store who have microcells in their home and I know the usage of it is not great, but does work. The point I'm making is that what's happening to you, shouldn't be happening and doesn't happen to other people as far as I know.

[dubojr1]

I like my Microcell. Took months of hounding to get AT&T to comp it but overall I'm happy for now. I agree the transition from it to a tower is not that good and usually will drop the call but overall as long as my internet connection is good, so is my Microcell.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by dubojr1

I like my Microcell. Took months of hounding to get AT&T to comp it but overall I'm happy for now. I agree the transition from it to a tower is not that good and usually will drop the call but overall as long as my internet connection is good, so is my Microcell.

So keeping it up for months... that's the trick! I knew that it was possible to hound them to get it for free. My brother and I hounded them for a couple weeks but the most we could get was something like half off or $100 or something. We didn't want to go any longer without coverage there so we caved.

[dubojr1]

Yeah I was having DSL issues with them too and I always loved when the CS would asked for an alternate number in the event we were dis-connected.... My alternate was my cell phone with AT&T too that also didn't work at my home at the time. Even after they caved and gave me a microcell, I still had issues with it because of their DSL. I switched to Comcast internet and now I looooove my internet speeds and I'm having tons less issues with the microcell.

[Jiggles]

Ok Ok, you want to know the trick to getting a free microcell? You walk into a store and tell the employee that customer service said they were going to give you a free microcell. We are so hell bent on providing excellent customer service in the store that we will discount it in store for you. If I like my customers, like you know, they are just good people and make me laugh, I'll tell the manager that CS told them they were getting one for free, he then has to discount it. It is up to our discretion so if you are a dick, were not going to do it. But yea, I give a lot of those away for free. The store loses money, but I make customers happy which makes me happy.

Anyway Czroe, did you warranty out your microcell yet?

[Jiggles]

Jason, what speed DSL were you signed up for with AT&T? The same thing happened to me, we were in reality only able to get a 1.5Mbps connection and we upgraded to 3.0Mbps. The lines couldn't handle that connection rate so we had all kinds of issues with it. Then Uverse became available in our area and we switched to that and haven't had issues since. I'm signed up for 12.0Mbps and get a constant 11.6Mbps, love it!

When I hear people have DSL issues, usually they are signed up for a speed that is faster than what the lines can handle. I know, its a retarded misstep that AT&T should have handled before it ever becomes an issue (by just not offering speeds they can't provide) but it happens. Glad to hear your microcell is working out

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Ok Ok, you want to know the trick to getting a free microcell? You walk into a store and tell the employee that customer service said they were going to give you a free microcell. We are so hell bent on providing excellent customer service in the store that we will discount it in store for you. If I like my customers, like you know, they are just good people and make me laugh, I'll tell the manager that CS told them they were getting one for free, he then has to discount it. It is up to our discretion so if you are a dick, were not going to do it. But yea, I give a lot of those away for free. The store loses money, but I make customers happy which makes me happy.

Anyway Czroe, did you warranty out your microcell yet?

Way too late for that and I feel that they'd just try to blame Charter Pipeline and my particular phone anyway.

[Jiggles]

It's possible it could be your phone. You've had it less than a year right? You can warranty that out also.

[dubojr1]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Jason, what speed DSL were you signed up for with AT&T? The same thing happened to me, we were in reality only able to get a 1.5Mbps connection and we upgraded to 3.0Mbps. The lines couldn't handle that connection rate so we had all kinds of issues with it. Then Uverse became available in our area and we switched to that and haven't had issues since. I'm signed up for 12.0Mbps and get a constant 11.6Mbps, love it!

When I hear people have DSL issues, usually they are signed up for a speed that is faster than what the lines can handle. I know, its a retarded misstep that AT&T should have handled before it ever becomes an issue (by just not offering speeds they can't provide) but it happens. Glad to hear your microcell is working out

My original speed was 1.5 and it would drop every time it rained. I replaced the filter inside, wiring to their box outside, from their box outside to the street pole and still every time it rained it failed. They kept blaming the issue on being something on my end. They thought maybe I was pulling too much from it and suggested going to the 3.0 which only made it worse. Keep in mind at this point when I lost my dsl... I was also loosing cell reception with the mircrocell. One of the dsl tech's told me it was not a n issue on my side or the dsl side for that matter. He said it was a telephone line issue that was bringing the signal to the neighborhood. All in all I fought them for 1.5 years between DSL & cell phone reception. I dumped my home telephone service first and then my DSL. Switched and now I don't need home telephone service as my microcell is doing fine.

I have to say that I had 2 phone CSR's tell me to do go to the store and tell them to I had been approved for a comp'd microcell and even had a confirmation number from one trip to give to the store manager but neither time worked. I had to get my microcell by charging it to my home number account and then call the CSR back to have it credited through them. The store was totally unwilling to help. They just kept saying that they couldn't just "give" away a $200 piece of equipment...

[Jiggles]

Stories like that make me sad, if you can't take care of your customer, someone else will. There was clearly no way to fix your wireline issue. I can't speak for stores in other states but in my state and for sure my district, we handle things very differently. If someone has wireline issues, I get a tech out there as soon as possible to fix it. Customer satisfaction is all that matters. If it takes a $200 piece of equipment to keep you as a customer, my manager wouldn't hesitate to do it. Sounds like those florida reps need some retraining

[itsa250bro]

@CZroe Sounds to me like your phone is just never getting a good consistent signal, so it is constantly hunting for a new cell connection – which eats up the battery. Also, I think it says right in the manual that during a call you can go from MicroCell to Cell Tower but, not the other way around.

I had a lot of trouble with my MicroCell when I first got it too but, that was 2 years ago and its been working pretty well since.

The first problem I had is with the GPS part of the MicroCell. They try to make sure you're not using it in a part of the world where it is not supported so the damn thing needs a GPS connection (clear view of the sky) which is pretty hard to do in the house – so I had to put it near a window and that seems to work most of the time. Have you checked this?

After that I had trouble with the phone connecting to the MicroCell. I think this problem was network related. I finally hooked it up using the yellow “Ethernet” connection to the lan (home) side of my router – not on the wan (internet) side and opened all of the necessary ports in the router. I figured at least this way, I won't loose Internet connection when it failed but, it really hasn't. It seems to work much better that way – at least for me. Let me know if you need a list of ports to open - its more than one!

@Jiggles doh... I didn't think about fighting for a free one – it really cheesed my off that I had to pay for something that should have worked to begin with but, I didn't really see any other option. The phone I had when I first got the MicroCell didn't support Skype over wireless otherwise, I would have just done that.

[Jiggles]

They still offer microcells for free but only in extreme cases. They don't want to give people a microcell if they have a tower being planned in that area, then it's sort of like paying for the same thing twice.

Oh and if you have a smartphone, download the app mark the spot. When AT&T receives enough complaints thru that system they build a cell tower in the area ASAP, I've seen it happen so try it out. Who knows you may just be that final complaint needed to get a new tower