Guest post: Setting up an AT&T MicroCell with Murphy Mac

I'd love to have one of these. I get very poor iPhone reception in my house, so have to have a land line for my home office. Unfortunately, I have Comcast as an ISP and they are notorious for disrupting VoIP traffic (I had a Vonage line for my office and it was completely unusable much of the time). I'd like to hear how this works out with Comcast as an ISP.

And yes, it's latency, not bandwidth, that determines voice quality with VoIP. Voice bandwidth requirements are quite low. Latency, on the other hand, is very disruptive to a real time service.

Some people seem to be missing some points here:

AT&T like most cell companies would love to install more towers. More towers mean more coverage, less stress on network. But, the same people who are blasting (insert cell carrier here) for lack of coverage are the same people who tell their local governments they don't want a cell tower in their backyard. Guess what... That cell tower you screamed bloody murder about might just have increased your cell phone range, sped up your network and help your kids get straight A's. No new towers no better coverage.

This device is OPTIONAL and not available everywhere yet. If it becomes available and you don't want it, don't buy it. If you want to use your cell phone in your house or office and don't want new cell towers then buy it.

Also, read the article before posting: it states that there is no monthly fee unless you want unlimited minutes while using the device. No fee means (wait for it) no fee!

$150 is way cheaper than it would cost to get a decent repeater. I'd buy one of these things in a heartbeat if it works well.

Okay, but what about dumb little phones like the Motorola Razr, or a throw-away prepaid GoPhone? You can't load a voip client on those phones and they don't have wifi equipped. Even if they did, you wouldn't be able to make or receive calls or SMS messages from your AT&T phone number - they would all go through Skype or something.

The idea of this is to allow your normal cell phone to continue operating like its supposed to in those weird pockets where cell coverage is weak or non-existent. A friend of mine lives in an area up in the mountains that has about a 10-mile dead zone for cell coverage. Any time he's out of the house it works fine, but when he's home we can't call him. This MicroCell solution would be perfect for him, allowing use of his phone at home when he otherwise couldn't.

I have one here in the Raleigh Market.

The unit obtains a GPS lock anytime the power is cycled. That being said you can place it next to the window to get a lock then move it back to someplace else in the room. Also if power is cycled the unit has to obtain a GPS lock that is within 1000 meters of it's initial lock or else you have to go into the AT&T MicroCell website and add a new location.

Only AT&T customers with 3G phones can use your microcell, and you have to give them permission. Up to 10 phone numbers. Of those, only 4 can be using it at a time.

You can connect to a cell tower going out, but not coming in. Therefor, if you are driving home and on a call, the call might get dropped when you get within range of your microcell. AT&T has said they are working changing that. Also, if your microcell cycles for whatever reason, your call will be dropped. Which makes sense. Note though, if you call the person back your call will get dropped as soon at the unit powers back up.

I had a few issues with garbled audio the first day I had it, but haven't talked to enough people to see if it happens again. I also have some Ethernet cables coming to put the unit is Priority Mode, between modem and router as QoS works by denying your packet and saying send again.

$150? It's too high, I would have preferred $100 at most I only justified it since even my wife on Verizon does not get great service at our house and we don't have a land line. Because my town-home is in a hole as it were, I was worried about not getting a GPS signal. I was told if for any reason I didn't like the unit, or it didn't work I could return it within 30 days, minus a 10% restocking fee. I really hate restocking fees!

When talking with the AT&T rep about the garbled calls and the unit resetting multiple times the first night, he was very nice and very helpful.

and, if you have decent reception in your house, there is no need what so ever for this..
crazy that they want to charge for the device and a monthly fee on top of what you pay on your cell plan..

What numb nut thought of this????

I would buy it if I got unlimited talk as part of buying it, not for $20 a month. F that. Thats just obnoxious.

So in the concrete jungles of San Francisco and New York, where these microcells would benefit the most, getting a GPS signal indoors is near impossible. So these were never meant to cure the problems for the big city folk?

If the purpose of these devices is to boost a weak or nonexistent cell signal, why would we be charged for it? AT&T should provide these for free.

It seems like this is doing them a favor, but yet we're paying them for it. Am I missing something?

The idea is a decent one, but the pricing is horrid.

150 bucks will let me use my phone in my house (assuming I could not before). If I want to use my phone at home in an unlimited capacity, I pay 20 MORE dollars. If I have an ATT landline I get a discount on those minutes? But if I have a landline, I think I'll just use that instead.

T-Mobile, I think wins this round.

Their 'router' = $50. (Unneeded, by the way)
Their unlimited minutes = $10/month (That lets you use any and all of the 'Hot-Spots' as they call it)