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Free AT&T Microcell email? Question for Microcell users

Just got an email from AT&T saying that I'm eligible for a free 3G microcell - which supposedly will always give a set number of devices full service in the house it's placed in.
I normally get pretty good service in my house (even in Wisconsin), but that's not always the case everywhere I go.
At any rate, am I able to take this thing when I go places (say, to uni, which will happen once again in the fall) and use it where ever?
Thanks!

What's the email saying exactly and do you have a screenshot of that email? I work at att and don't know about that yet but different dept
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App

cookw24 said:
Just got an email from AT&T saying that I'm eligible for a free 3G microcell - which supposedly will always give a set number of devices full service in the house it's placed in.
I normally get pretty good service in my house (even in Wisconsin), but that's not always the case everywhere I go.
At any rate, am I able to take this thing when I go places (say, to uni, which will happen once again in the fall) and use it where ever?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can take it anywhere that has high speed internet. But it needs to be registered to the location you are going to use it at, and it has to be placed near a a window to get GPS reception. If you take it from one place to another, you have to update the info on the website to reflect where it's located.
Also, it takes up to 90 minutes to activate when it's turned on.

harlenm said:
Yes, you can take it anywhere that has high speed internet. But it needs to be registered to the location you are going to use it at, and it has to be placed near a a window to get GPS reception. If you take it from one place to another, you have to update the info on the website to reflect where it's located.
Also, it takes up to 90 minutes to activate when it's turned on.
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Click to collapse
I have one thing to add to your post which was great. It does need to be near a window to get GPS HOWEVER once it gets GPS it can be moved. I put mine near a window with a long cord (router isnt near window at all) and it locked on GPS. I then unplugged it and moved it next to my router and it powered back on and locked GPS as it did prior. That's a little tip if you don't have a window near where your router is installed.

if you already have good service, 2 bars plus you dont need/want it; it will just make your phone go crazy.

Mustang302LX said:
I have one thing to add to your post which was great. It does need to be near a window to get GPS HOWEVER once it gets GPS it can be moved. I put mine near a window with a long cord (router isnt near window at all) and it locked on GPS. I then unplugged it and moved it next to my router and it powered back on and locked GPS as it did prior. That's a little tip if you don't have a window near where your router is installed.
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Click to collapse
It doesn't always retain it's GPS info if it's unplugged. If you dont' have a window nearby, you are better off running a long cat5 and power cord to it, and then moving it without unplugging it.
Or, you can buy an external antenna for like $25 that gives you a 25 foot cord.

I imagine they will give you the microcell if you agree to the unlimited service they try to sell you with it. I can't remember exactly, but it was something like $25/month for all calls made through the microcell, and they don't come off of your minutes. I've got one at home because I live in a dead area and rarely have reception unless I step outside my house, plus I don't live in a 3G area anyway. Problem is, when I walk into my house, it won't automatically switch over to the microcell unless it loses the signal from the tower. Works pretty good in the house, though, but my phone will lose connection to it intermittently with it for unknown reasons. Not a perfect solution, but it's better than missing all of my calls when I'm home.

I dont know if anyone else has experienced this. I got a microcell last week and use it with an unlocked samsung vibrant. My apartment does not get very good reception at all (rarely even get one bar) and when connected to the microcell it chews through my battery. Previously, even with poor reception, I would go through 1-2% of the battery per hour with use. When connected to the microcell, i go through 4-6% of battery per hour without any use at all. I do not know a great deal about the microcell where this could be a firmware thing or it could be that I am using an unlocked phone from another carrier, but just something to watch for.

I have one of these. If you use it, don't expect H+ speeds off of it. You get 3G speeds on data. And if you don't have a good broadband connection, voice can get choppy. But there is a benefit to having and using it. For $20 a month (I think), you can get unlimited family domestic calls on it to any phone regardless of whether it is a land line or cell phone. But I have the $30 unlimited texting and cell phone calls now on my family plan, and make so few calls to land-lines, that I no longer use that service.

lol how weird, i work for an at&t shop and i just got a call by someone questioning an email they got about a free microcell.. i was browsing thru xda at the time and was on this thread, crazy..
i have one at my house, its cool if you really have absolutely no service where you live.. the only down side to this device is; if you are currently connected to the microcell and are in a call, if you leave your house the call will drop as you are leaving the microcell and reconnecting to the normal cell towers..
if you are never "in-call" while moving in and out of the area of your house than you wont notice this and it will be a cool device for you to have.

Don't take your MicroCell to the Grocery store!?!? Step away from the cell phone...
harlenm said:
Yes, you can take it anywhere that has high speed internet. But it needs to be registered to the location you are going to use it at, and it has to be placed near a a window to get GPS reception. If you take it from one place to another, you have to update the info on the website to reflect where it's located.
Also, it takes up to 90 minutes to activate when it's turned on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What a huge inconvenience it would be to travel with this thing.. maybe if you're going to be somewhere for over a week (Still wouldn't take it with me) . but if you're just going to a buddies house for the afternoon... please leave your MicroCell behind.... lol
For some reason, I can't download while on Mobile Data and connected to the MicroCell. Upload appears to be fine, but as far as browsing the net at home when im too lazy to open my lap top.. No Bueno... Wifi still works so it really just irritating more than anything.

Mine seems to be hit and miss for calls. Sound great when they come through but seem to drop.after 10 min or so. Other than that I have no issues with it. Just that data speeds suck but when I'm at home.WiFi works just fine for that
Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk

Got a free microcell where I moved into have no service so called in had then put a note on the account so I can pick one up, I had to speak to a manager but I just went on and on and finally got it done and picked it up in store free no contract extension, hope it helps
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App

Mustang302LX said:
I have one thing to add to your post which was great. It does need to be near a window to get GPS HOWEVER once it gets GPS it can be moved. I put mine near a window with a long cord (router isnt near window at all) and it locked on GPS. I then unplugged it and moved it next to my router and it powered back on and locked GPS as it did prior. That's a little tip if you don't have a window near where your router is installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you get it to stay locked on to gps? ive taken mine outside multiple times and after a while it locks on to the location, but after i unplug it and place it inside it loses all the information
thanks

I have absolutely NO Service where I live and too have a Microcell- I have noticed as previously mentioned if while talking inside and then going outside- the call will drop.
Also there are some moments where I will receive a voicemail notification & the phone never rang. Other times- I am not connected so I put the phone in airplane mode for a few seconds and then back to reconnect to the Microcell.
The Microcell definitely improved the ability to talk to others when before I had to go outside to get some bars. It's hot outside- it gets old having to talk to anyone- outside- so I am grateful AT&T hooked me up with a FREE Microcell.

The rule to the Mcell is they drop calls going from micro to macro. Apparently its not a smooth transition like tower to tower..also speeds are veal but that's what you get limited speed but increases signal
Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk

Friend of mine has one of these and his is hit or miss all the time he tells me. I would like to get the email offering me a free one! I would try it out just to see if he was doing something wrong! lol

[Q] complete signal loss

Iv had the AT&T One X since the 4th and so far I love it! I haven't had any wifi issues or bootloops or anything, the only problem I'm having is the phone will randomly lose signal completely (0 bars, little x next to the signal) and wont get it back unless I put it into airplane mode and turn it back off, or reboot the phone. In the 6 days Iv had it it's lost signal 3 times, once on the road where I normally get at least 3-4 bars, and the other 2 happened at some point over night while I was asleep. Has anyone else been having this problem? Also do you think it's a software/radio problem that can be fixed in a update, or would it be hardware in which case I should take it to the store and exchange for a new one.

I've had this problem myself. Had the phone for 19 days now and I think it's happened to me 3 or 4 times.
I can guarantee it's fixable with a software update, even if the problem is hardware-related. At the very least, the software could detect the lack of signal and automatically cycle in and out of airplane mode to fix the problem without user interaction. But I'm sure whatever fix we get will be much more reliable than that.
WHEN we get the fix is another question...

Thanks for the reply. I figured it might be a software issue since you can cycle airplane mode and get it back and I don't really want to take it down to the AT&T store for an exchange in fear I wined up not able to set up gvoice or start getting wifi issues and the like lol. so far the signal drops are far and few in between making it an annoying issue rather than a critical one, and I read we've got root now so even if HTC/AT&T twiddle their thumbs and pretend nothings wrong I'm sure the community can save the day lol

I would swap it out Azure. My first HOX did exactly this, and I saw it reported elsewhere on a number of other devices. To me that says it's most likely a bad radio flash on some handsets. I suppose you could try and flash the RUU that was posted, as it most likely includes the radio as well.
I got tired of all my calls going directly to VM without ringing. And not being able to send out texts. My replacement works much better (or rather, how it should've from the beginning).

agentdr8 said:
I got tired of all my calls going directly to VM without ringing. And not being able to send out texts.
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Click to collapse
Was this problem intermittent?
My phone has been doing this randomly, except it never went to voicemails, just hung up after like 30 seconds.
Wondering if I should switch it out also.

Had this problem for a day. Took my phone to the at&t store and they changed out the sim card and I haven't had a problem since.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

usfslacker said:
Had this problem for a day. Took my phone to the at&t store and they changed out the sim card and I haven't had a problem since.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
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Click to collapse
I never thought about the sim card being a possible problem...might run up to the store when I get the chance and swap my sim out and see if that fixes it, if not I'll just swap the device out and hope all's well

The CSR actually swapped a new micro sim first, since the one provided via online sales was an older one (most likely from the iphone 4/4s batch). It didn't seem to fix the problem though.
And yeah, the problem was very intermittent. One second it would be working fine, and the next it would show the "x". Sometimes the bars would come back immediately, other times it wouldn't until I rebooted or cycled airplane mode. Luckily it happened while I was at the store; it's much easier to convince a sales rep to swap a phone when they can witness the issue(s).

Yeah it's only happened to me twice since I got it on the 4th... it'll be very hard for me to convince them that there's an issue haha... maybe I'll head down there if it happens at a time when I'm not in class or something. I'm sure if I mention returning it/their policy I'll get a swap.

agentdr8 said:
The CSR actually swapped a new micro sim first, since the one provided via online sales was an older one (most likely from the iphone 4/4s batch). It didn't seem to fix the problem though.
And yeah, the problem was very intermittent. One second it would be working fine, and the next it would show the "x". Sometimes the bars would come back immediately, other times it wouldn't until I rebooted or cycled airplane mode. Luckily it happened while I was at the store; it's much easier to convince a sales rep to swap a phone when they can witness the issue(s).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
next time my phone drops signal I'll take it into the store and see about a sim swap in hopes that'll fix the issue if not then I'll reluctantly swap the unit out (I've grown rather attached to this one xD)
**EDIT**
strange...woke up today and my phone completely lost signal again, normally there's a few days between each event but this is the first time it's happened twice in a row =\

So it happened again, I'm going to go get it switched... but it says on the Mobile network section of settings, "Disconnected because service is unavailable."
There is clearly almost full signal strength, and I have never been without service where I live.

I was expereincing constant network drops all of yesterday due to an outage. However, it's back to normal for me today. So it may be possible there's an outage near you as well.

I think it is more AT&T than your phone. I was in down town buffalo at a swim meet with 5 bars of hspa+ on my blackberry bold that has a great radio. I had data but it was slow dial up slow. There were maybe 100-200 people at the meet and it was at a community college. The only other time I had this was when I was in a car that was driving by the buffalo bills stadium. Voice worked but I had no data. I guess too many people using their cell phones.

Definitely not AT&T, my SE Xperia x10 worked perfectly fine, never had any trouble with signals.

I also encounter the intermittent signal drops on my 4 days old AT&T one x.
It seems to me that the One x doesn't hold signal as good as the iphone, my 4 and 4s usually get around 2 bars in some really remote locations of the building I work. But the One X just drops signal completely. I'll see if I can do a sim swap like some others suggested.

I'm starting to think it could be an issue with lte phones because the same thing was happening to me on my galaxy note with 2 different sim cards and 2 different devices and now it's happening on my hox
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

it has happened to me 3 times in 5 days. All 3 times I was either:
1. in a poor reception area and it came back on its own, i did not have to use airplane mode.
2. was using BT streaming in car and using car charger, once car charger was unplugged, signal came back.

One X has issues
Definitively problems with the phone.
I have three.
They just drop signal completely. One will work, the other will not. Only way the signal will come back is if you turn the phone on and off again. I love everything about this phone....except it isn't a very good phone.
Also, typically when I turn the phone back on, that is when I get my text messages. Nice.

Yeah I figured out it happens when I lose signal (a couple buildings on my schools campus don't get reception), and then the signal won't come back until I reboot or airplane mode.. this is after a sim swap.
Oh and do I need the box my phone came in to swap it?
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

I have had this issue as well being on the Rogers (Canada) network. I started a thread as well and my theory is there may be a hardware issue reading the SIM cards.
Every now and then I get a "preparing SIM" message pop up on my screen. Also, I lost signal once and in frustration I slapped the phone into my palm VOILA! signal came back full.
This is the second One-X I've gotten from Rogers so there may be a design flaw somewhere. The problem is this behavior only pops up intermittently and cannot be recreated at will. This makes troubleshooting very difficult and practically unprovable in the eyes of providers.
Hopefully there are more reports of this problem and the carriers push back on HTC to resolve the problem.

Verizon S3 connection problems

Anyone else having problems with sending and receiving calls on their S3 in areas where they should be having no problems?
I got my phone at launch and it seemed to work fine, I noticed the connection issues after a couple of weeks and figured they would be fixed with software updates as time progressed.
But it's been over 6 months and I'm really growing tired of having to resend texts 5 times and never receiving calls. My phone shows I have 2 bars of 4G yet when my family calls me from the front door of our house (which is 12 feet away from my room) I get nothing. The only reason I know this is because I have the google voice chrome plugin that tells me when I have messages or missed calls to my google voice number, but since I have my voicemail synced up with gv it tells me when I have missed calls regardless of it being to my actual cell number or my gv number. If it wasn't for that I would never know that I missed calls all the time. And I only know I miss texts because my girlfriend gets pissed at me all the time because she thinks I'm ignoring her when I don't reply to texts I'm suppose to receive but never do.
So I've been living with this annoying problem for a while now and I thought maybe it was just my room that had bad reception but I remembered that my previous phone (HTC Droid Incredible) never had this problem. So I tried out my parent's feature phones (LG env 2 and 3) and they didn't have any problems while I replicated the same situations. Their old inferior phones worked better than the nice premium one I paid extra for. Ain't that some bs?
And now I go to a different school that has terrible reception in all the buildings I have classes in. So I always turn on airplane mode and enable power saving to make sure my phone doesn't die by the end of the day. But the other day I asked this random girl sitting by me in the first floor of the student union if her galaxy s3 was getting signal and she said "No, this phone sucks in this building". I asked what service she had and she said Sprint. I didn't know if I should have felt content knowing I wasn't the only one or mad that this phone might have an antenna problem. BUT just yesterday I was in the same student union, in the lower floor this time, and I asked this guy from my class if his data was working on his phone and he said "Yeah I'm downloading a picture right now.", to which I replied back with which service? He said "Verizon", what phone? "Motorola Razer something". At that point I got so frustrated that I felt like throwing my phone.
I mean the phone itself is great, I love using it and taking pictures with it, although lately I've been getting "camera failed" errors a lot. It's just really annoying that it doesn't serve its most basic functions when I need them to work.
So I'm asking if anyone else has been experiencing similar issues and what they did about it? I would have called Verizon sooner but since I'm an added line on our family's plan they only want to talk to my dad. He and I have different schedules so it's always a pain to try and coordinate.

I had similar issues with by i535.
Except the issues appeared the 1st day I got my device, and I was highly po'd to say the least, considering I left sprint the same day because I couldn't complete a call for months. Troubleshot with Verizon tech as is the protocol prior to replacement, and saw the device was faulty. Not communicating with the Towers. Device issue possibly regarding the antenna, but uncertain.
Anyway, I got a new replacement a few months ago, and all has been well.
The cause of your issues may be the same, except yours were delayed in appearing. Hard to tell.

Yeah, I'm hoping to try and get a replacement soon. I'm just scared I'll get a refurbished one that has the same issues.

Dropped phone no longer connects to cell network; Wifi still works

Hey guys. I've been banging my head on the desk for a few weeks now and have now given up on self-help.
I drunkenly dropped my phone and even though it had one of those soft rubber fishbone cases, the screen cracked. It worked just fine until the next day or so until the phone stopped connecting to the cell network 90% of the time. For the first week after the connection issues, it would connect to only LTE but for about 5 minutes, then have a period of 30 minutes to an hour of no connectivity. During the LTE on-time, I couldn't send/receive text messages or make calls. I was confused, but figured it was because I live in an area with poor reception. Gradually over the last week, the phone's ability to connect to anything at all except Wifi has turned to absolutely null.
I just took the phone apart completely, checking all antennas and contact points but nothing was helping. I just ordered a new antenna from eBay to see if a transplant with an OEM part will help. We'll see how that goes when it gets here.
When I powered the phone back on after a complete disassembly/reassembly, it connected to the cell network with only enough time to spare to receive the 48 texts I'd missed since the last connection was established.
My question is, I guess, what do?
Images:
i.imgur[.com]/WZDmdu7.png
i.imgur[.com]/4O7r2Ed.jpg

maybe getting a new phone from ebay or trying to replace everything(internal parts) till the signal gets back to normal

Your best option is to make sure it isn't just a software problem, I'd go back to stock and see if you can get full connection on a fully stock rom.
Replacing everything on your phone would be a tedious process, you're better off taking it apart and seeing if you have any visual components that are obviously detached, you can compare it to Adam's Deboxing video where he completely disassembles the phone and you can see where everything attaches and what everything is supposed to look like.
If that still isn't working, then i'd call Samsung and see if they'd repair it, might be worth the cost.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

BadUsername said:
Your best option is to make sure it isn't just a software problem, I'd go back to stock and see if you can get full connection on a fully stock rom.
Replacing everything on your phone would be a tedious process, you're better off taking it apart and seeing if you have any visual components that are obviously detached, you can compare it to Adam's Deboxing video where he completely disassembles the phone and you can see where everything attaches and what everything is supposed to look like.
If that still isn't working, then i'd call Samsung and see if they'd repair it, might be worth the cost.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not bad plans of action there. Might end up doing both. I did remember updating to the CM10.2 stable the day before the connection issues, so I reverted back to a random 10.1 nightly. No luck. I'll see if I can dig up a stock ROM from the forum. I know they had one available for the Samsung Fascinate. As for Samsung repairing it, I just hope they don't charge me more than the value of my kidneys. Thanks, bruv!

Pixel SMS/MMS issues

So my first pixel (32gb black) had microphone issues and had that replaced yesterday no problem. It was all working totally fine and like it should until after the ball drop last night when all of the sudden my phone would not send text messages anymore. So I went to bed thinking it was just tower overload from the new year celebration. Then I wake up this morning and my wife tells me she got 20 text messages from me all in duplicates. I think great, its all fixed. Then I realized throughout the day that while my messages were going out now I was not getting any back. We tested this and sure enough nothing is coming through.
So I chatted with a Google rep and after doing all the troubleshooting (Safe mode, cache clear, reboots, etc) we still had the same issue. At that point he says he talked to a specialist who says its a known issue affecting a small group of Pixel owners and they are working as quickly as possible to fix it.
Anyone else experiencing this? I haven't been able to find any other posts about it which seems really unusual.

I have the exact same problem as you! You're not alone...and yes this is very frustrating. I haven't seen much posted about this issue either. I also thought it was tower overload until my mother-in-law told me my mom was texting me and I wasn't getting any of the texts. Can you send texts? I can. What about phone calls? I can still make and receive those. I'm talking to google as we speak. See what happens.

Well I'm glad I am not alone. I can also still send messages and make and receive calls. Just no text messages coming in. They said it might be my sim card and they want me to talk to my carrier which is ATT. who is your carrier? Let me know what they say or if you get it resolved!

I've been having the same issue with AT&T. Also the same thing happened to me on NYE. I sent happy new year to a friend and he got it like 30 times. I then didnt get any txt's for the rest of the night. I then rebooted my pixel in the AM and I got flooded with txt's I didnt get the night before.
This has been an on going problem for me and AT&T because I get txt's in spurts. Nothing for a while then all of a sudden I get a chunk and then nothing again. It's also very random as I have not been about to duplicate it. I think it's just something with AT&T and the pixel.

mdecker79 said:
I've been having the same issue with AT&T. Also the same thing happened to me on NYE. I sent happy new year to a friend and he got it like 30 times. I then didnt get any txt's for the rest of the night. I then rebooted my pixel in the AM and I got flooded with txt's I didnt get the night before.
This has been an on going problem for me and AT&T because I get txt's in spurts. Nothing for a while then all of a sudden I get a chunk and then nothing again. It's also very random as I have not been about to duplicate it. I think it's just something with AT&T and the pixel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had almost the same issue. I sent out some texts for the new year that night and they kept saying failed but people said they got them about 100 times. From there I turned it off and rebooted in the morning. Then it was exactly the opposite with them going through no problem but not coming back at all.
I had another Pixel prior to this and never had any issue after a month of use. My brother and SIL also have the same phone on my plan and live right up the road and have never had the issue. It seems unusual that its only affecting SOME phones and not all who have the same set of conditions.
I'm going to talk to my local AT&T store today and see if they will pop in a new SIM card for me and give that a shot.

I have similar SMS issues with my Pixel XL on ATT. In my case, I seem to have more issues sending or receiving SMS while connected to WIFI. Disconnect WIFI and they send/receive as they should. I've had ATT replace my SIM and check all necessary configs on their side and all looks good according to them. I can take that same SIM and put it in my Nexus 6P and all works as it should on WIFI or on carrier.

prestonpeterson said:
I have similar SMS issues with my Pixel XL on ATT. In my case, I seem to have more issues sending or receiving SMS while connected to WIFI. Disconnect WIFI and they send/receive as they should. I've had ATT replace my SIM and check all necessary configs on their side and all looks good according to them. I can take that same SIM and put it in my Nexus 6P and all works as it should on WIFI or on carrier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I just tried turning off wifi and sending a few test texts. Still nothing for me coming back. I wish that would at least temporarily solve the issue so I could get on with my day to day life. It seems strange that others are having this issue but there isn't any chatter about it online. I thought more people would be posting about it but there is nothing.

ATT has an SMS test number you can send "test" to 151 and it will respond if all is working correctly. I have the same results with that test number as I do with any other contacts.

Okay so I got mine resolved. I went to the ATT store and they put in a new SIM card and reset network settings. They also reregistered the serial number of the phone to my number. After that all my messages came flooding in and I've been fine ever since. So many one of those three things fixed it though I had already reset my network setting before so I don't think that was it. Best of luck to the others out there!