Good news. My blood pressure is coming down from an all time high. For nearly three years now the administrators of the school that I work for, Toledo Central Catholic High School, have had to deal with little to no cellular signals in our building. Why? Because some tech junkie (me) that loves revolutionary technology (iPhone) talked them into getting the iPhone which necessitated that they switch from Verizon to AT&T. In our building, owners of Verizon handsets consistently have more bars and better coverage than those of us on AT&T. Let's not fixate on the fact that the most revolutionary cellphone/mobile device in the world is hampered with what others have described as "…a marriage of convenience and necessity." See: http://technologizer.com/2009/06/09/atts-network-problems-arent-just-in-big-cities-anymore/
We've all heard that AT&T is working on improving and "fixing" this situation by enhancing their infrastructure, but realistically we can't ignore the reality that since the original iPhone was released in 2007, those of us at CCHS either couldn't make a call, couldn't receive calls, or dropped calls consistently from our AT&T-based iPhones.
While it would have been better for everyone if AT&T had come into Toledo, done an assessment and put up more towers, this would have cost AT&T large sums of money. Like many corporations affected by the recession today, AT&T had to come up with a fix that limited the impact to their bottom line. In an effort to quickly fix situations like this, AT&T has released the MicroCell. See: http://www.att.com/3gmicrocell
The MicroCell is an ingenious device manufactured by Cisco for AT&T. Essentially, a MicroCell is a miniature cell phone tower around 10 inches tall that you can put into your home, workplace, or business. You connect MicroCell to your pre-existing broadband internet service such as a cable modem or DSL router. Once configured and activated under your AT&T phone's account, the owner of the MicroCell can assign up to 9 more AT&T phone numbers as authorized users of the device. It functions nearly identically as any other cell tower though the device is limited to 4 simultaneous calls or 3G data connections. A friend's or another authorized phone's usage of your MicroCell counts against their calling plan, not against the calling plan of the owner of the MicroCell.
Our MicroCell was purchased from a local AT&T store for $149.99. There are no monthly charges or activation fees. Let's talk about setup.
Before physically setting up the MicroCell, AT&T requires that you to log into your current wireless account, and "activate" your MicroCell by providing things like:
*MicroCell serial number
*Location address for e911 service
*Authorized user phone numbers
Unfortunately, I couldn't log into AT&T's website as they were still dealing with the recent iPad 3G hacked account issues. See: http://www.slashgear.com/ipad-3g-email-list-exposed-by-att-hack-1089218/
The next day I was finally able to begin activation (after calling AT&T because the website was STILL down). Once that process is complete, setup should be as easy as connecting your MicroCell to your broadband connection and plug in the included power cable. I say "should be" because we will have more on this issue later.
The first thing you will see is the power icon light up solid. The internet connection light will blink as the MicroCell tries to negotiate its DHCP assigned internet address from your cable modem or router. Once the internet connection is established, the GPS light and 3G light will begin to blink. GPS?
Unless the MicroCell can lock onto a Global Positioning Satellite signal or one of AT&T's cell towers, it will not function. Let's go back to that issue I mentioned above. I'm curious as to what makes AT&T think that GPS signals will penetrate a building when cellular signals will not? If I can't get cellular service into my building, how can the MicroCell lock onto one of AT&T's towers? This was the most maddening thing I have dealt with in some time. The GPS light just blinked on and off, over and over again. The user manual says that one should wait 90 minutes before contacting tech support. So I waited and waited. Then I called AT&T (again) and asked for help:
So here is what AT&T says to do to fix this situation- put the MicroCell by a window. I know what you are thinking. If my MicroCell is by a window, and it covers a diameter of 5000 square feet, nearly half of my coverage will be outdoors!
I literally spent hours on the phone with multiple AT&T technicians trying to get them to hard code the GPS coordinates into their database to remove this restriction. The last technician on this day that I spoke with said that I should leave the MicroCell connected for 24 hours and that he would call me back the next day. He did not call me back the next day.
Two days later I moved the MicroCell into an office with a window, called AT&T back (yet again) as it still wasn't working, filed a case number with another technician and hung up the phone. Thirty seconds later the MicroCell was working! We are now covering a large portion of the front lawn of our school but more importantly, we are now covering most of our administrative offices with a high degree of success.
Approximately 30 minutes later I received the first of three separate phone calls from various technicians at AT&T letting me know that the MicroCell should now be working and that I can call them back if I have any more trouble. Here is a picture of your iPhone once it connects to MicroCell:
I found a number of resources that some of you might find useful if you want to deal with this GPS issue in other ways:
http://forums.wireless.att.com/t5/AT-T-3G-MicroCell/Is-GPS-lock-required-for-MC-to-work/m-p/1943122
http://www.gilsson.com/garmin_gps/antennas/mcx.htm
I want to make one more point that I think needs to be made about my experience with AT&T. Every customer service representative and systems engineer that I spoke with at AT&T was extremely nice, polite, and easy to deal with, but ultimately they were all mired and restricted by an incredibly non-customer-friendly set of horrific rules, regulations, and procedures that create what I feel is the worst customer relations nightmare that I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with in my entire life. In my opinion, AT&T has the potential to be the premiere wireless carrier in the United States, but only if they hire usability experts and design experts to tear apart and rebuild their entire customer experience.
In conclusion, the end result is that the MicroCell is successfully installed, our administrators should be able to consistently use their iPhones inside of our school for the first time in nearly 3 years, and my blood pressure is slowly returning to normal.
CH