Welcome to the new world. This weekend I purchased AT&T’s 3G MicroCell. It’s actually a Cisco femotocell tower (Model# DPH151-AT) branded for AT&T. The simple idea behind this product is to give you cell phone service where NONE exists via your existing broadband Internet. This is not a signal booster, it is an actual mini 3G cell tower that translates all communication from your 3G device (data, text, voice) over the Internet. I think it should be called MOIP (Mobile over IP) communication.Purchase Options
There are two ways to buy it:
- Outright for $150. No strings attached. Hook it up to your Internet connection and the minutes/text msgs you use on your phones get deducted from your plan’s total as if you were driving down the road
- Buy it for $150 and fill out the $100 rebated (costing you, in effect, $50) and get the required $19.99/month plan that gives any device using this cell unlimited voice, data and text.
I chose the first option for a few reasons:
- Our company, VickeryHill, has 6 iPhones and all of our offices have Wi-Fi, so they devices rarely use data on 3G
- Our AT&T group plan has enough minutes that we have yet to go over in 2 years (so I don’t need the unlimited $20 MicroCell plan)
I am pretty sure the rebate incentive and $20/month required plan is for those people who dont have a home phone (cable internet) and want their cell phone to be their primary. Otherwise, it seems to me that you would catch up on the $100 rebate within 5 months – and the unlimited data and voice isn’t going to do much for someone who has to have a phone. In other words, if you have DSL, you have a phone line anyway, so use that for your unlimited talk time:)
Setup
There is no web browser interface, just simple instructions – plug it in near a window (for GPS connectivity), and activate online. The GPS signal is required to sync devices connecting with the MicroCell to a physical address for 911 services. Supposedly any 3G device could wander up my road and make a 911 call without having to authenticate to the femtocell.
It wasn’t as simple as activating from the AT&T 3G MicroCell site….logging into the complex nightmare of a web portal with my existing Premier account didn’t work. I was forced to call AT&T and do it manually. Once that was done, I logged into our premier web account (same account i already use for our business mobile), click on the primary number and in the “view account information”, Optional Features window, i see “MICRO CELL TRACKING $0.00″. Looking good!
So, I plug power cord in and jack into my network with the included ethernet cable and the green lights start flashing. The manual and AT&T say it could be up to 3 hours to activate, so i head to the golf course…and while on the 3rd hole i get a TextMessage from AT&T “11111111″ saying “3G MicroCell activated”.
Success!
I must say, it is a weird enough thing to be a technologist and live semi-disconnected up in the Green Mountains of Warren, Vermont — then all of a sudden to have your your cell phone ring while on the coffee table is beyond strange. A few hours later, a text message shows up. BEEP, BLEEP! ‘Unsettling’ may be a better word. It is another form of connectivity that didn’t exist before – all thanks to the 3G MicroCell. Time will tell whether it is a social plus or a personal life negative.On the iPhone 3GS, the tower shows up as AT&T M-Cell in the display and works as if i was on a standard AT&T or other 3G cell tower connection.
Actual Coverage
The online documentation of the MicroCell says 40 foot radius should be expected at full bars. With all the hoopla recently about Antennagate and signal strength algorithms, I think people forget that you can still make calls with one bar. Honestly, i wasn’t sure what the difference is in strength vs. call/data quality, so i did a little research and found that the bars are a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) on most phones, but on the iPhone it is the Received Signal code power (RSCP) of the 3G (WCDMA) signal. Somehow it is displaying signal strength as relative (-decibels) to actual full strength (watts) on a logarithmic scale – but with only 4 or 5 bars, it doesn’t seem that useful.
Quality
The call quality is exceptional and really quite amazing. I know we are not using the Internet connection for much else, but i really expected some mediocre Vonage-style audio that didnt allow speaking and listening at the same time. It sounds great and works well even with only 1 bar. It has only been 2 days, but i am impressed so far.
Note: I want to make sure and explain: we have 2 x Async DSL connections in our office. Connection A is our primary and used for all email (Exchange Server), web traffic, FTPing, etc. Connection B is only used as an emergency backup and hosts our Bomgar B-100 remote control box. I placed the 3G MicroCell on connection B. I would bet that if 2 or more devices were using their 3G for voice calls on our primary Internet that either audio quality would suffer or our download speeds would be reduced significantly!Overall
- Product knowledge from Shane at the AT&T store in Montpelier was excellent.
- Customer service was excellent.
- Driving to the store to buy it was a piece of cake.
- Activating was not the magical ‘plug and play’ they claimed. I had to call AT&T customer service and explain outright what i was trying to do – 20 minutes on the phone and the rep finally got it and demonstrated where i could see it was actually activated.
Actual use is easy and straight forward – you can add up to 10 x 3G devices that are ‘allowed’ to connect to the MicroCell.
Up to 4 devices can be on a voicecall at once (bandwidth limitations?). The phone rings, we get text messages and voicemails popup.
We are a 3G island in an otherwise signal-less sea of rock and trees in Vermont’s Mad River Valley. AT&T has a 30 day 100% return policy. To be honest, if we do return it, it will not be for technical or quality reason – it will be to return to a simpler, more quiet home life!
