Mcell requires power cycle every day to regain connection to iPhones

[Avedis53]

So I'm back from vacation and the problem still exists.  I'm seeing dropped connections occurring at other times besides at night so I definitely think we can rule out "nightly polling" as the cause of a dropped connection.

I just received another call from ATT Customer Care this morning and that person told me after discussing my problems with their technical gods, it is recognized by ATT that there is a dropped connection issue with the Mcells and it is independent of cell phone manufacturer.  I was told that while there is no solution at this time, ATT is working with Cisco to come up with a firmware revision that will address this problem.  No date was mentioned as to when (if ever) we will see it.

I said that's fine but I wanted to eliminate the possibility that I had a defective Mcell.  I told her that when I first got the Mcell, I didn't have this problem.  She agreed to send me another Mcell (reconditioned) free of charge by priority shipping.  I will need to send the original Mcell back within 10 days.  She will contact me after I've had a chance to see how the "new" Mcell is working.

If I had paid $200 for my Mcell, I would certainly be more upset than I am now but since they gave it to me for free, I'll just have to deal with it by power cycling the Mcell when I see that my iPhones have lost their Mcell connection.  Considering the fact that when I do have a Mcell connection it provides good cell phone coverage in my home where I have marginal cell tower signal strength and dropped calls, it's better than nothing.

Despite my frustration with the Mcell, I have to say that at least ATT seems to care about my problem and is doing everything they can from their end to help me.

I'll report back after I've had a chance to evaluate the "new" Mcell and see if I still have the same problem.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Thank you for your update and no-nonsense reply. I'm glad to hear that support is working with you in so far as shipping you a refurbed MicroCell to test out. Cisco would not have been my first choice as a mfr but that's history now. There are a lot of MicroCells without your issues (mine for one, which is going coming up on 2.5 years of continuous service) so I'm not sure if a firmware update is the answer or not. It's more like a faulty component but what ever the case, at least support is working to resolve it.

[thompwil]

I too, had a very pleasant and productive conversation with AT&T’s M-cell support. As it stands, still not sure what is causing the intermittent drop outs requiring M-Cell resets. I decided to purchase the external GPS antenna from Amazon for 6 bucks and do some more experimentation; that was my suggestion to satisfy my own curiosity. I’m thinking of moving the unit a little further away from the window to a location where the tower signals may not be quite as strong. Maybe too much tower strength near the window where my phones work fine, but as they move away from the windows they lose signal (thus the need for the M-Cell). I figured it was worth a try since I’ve wasted more than 6 bucks on stupider things. If those experiments don’t work out, AT&T has agreed to replace the unit if I’m not successful. Thanks AT&T for the support, I do appreciate it.
Another curiosity,,, is there any commonality to the drop out issues and ISPs? My ISP is Comcast, maybe there is some maintenance/who knows?/modem upgrade thing that occurs that is causing the the drops? Just curious..
Thanks

[Avedis53]

I tried the tower signal strength game but it didn't matter in my case.  I moved the Mcell to a spot that had the lowest number of signal bars on my iPhone (1-2) but could still get a GPS lock.  I would be curious to know if adding an external GPS antenna resolves your problem but since I've always had a solid green GPS light, I doubt it would in my case.

My ISP is Charter and from my understanding, this problem is independent of ISPs.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

To answer both of the above comments, it does seem that Comcast customer's have more issues than others but I think that's more of a numbers game than an actual problem with the ISP. External antennas do work very well if you have to move your MicroCell away from a window to a better position in your house. However, if the GPS light is solid green then you've got GPS lock, and unless the unit is defective and gives you a "false" reading, you're fine. You can try a network reset on your iPhone if you haven't done so already. That sometimes fixes the connecivity issue but you may lose some of your network settings so make sure you have them written down somewhere so you can quickly and easily put them back in.

[thompwil]

A network reset on my I-phone is not the probable fix since my wife's android drops out too, both phones are either on the network together, or off together. At least AT&T is willing to replace my unit if I fail with the external antenna. Time will tell, but I'm not optimistic based on the info I've read so far.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Probable fix or not, it's worth a try, at least for the iPhone, but that's up to you. If the replacement unit doesn't work, then I'd pm CustomerCare (see the link in my sig), detail what's been happening, what you've done, what AT&T has done, along with your account info (phone number, etc) and see what they can do. They sometimes can get more information from the network engineers than phone support can so it's worth a shot if it's a network issue. Something is causing your MicroCell to lose connectivity and drop your phones, whehter it's the network or the MicroCell itself is hard to say.

[Avedis53]

My replacement Mcell will be delivered tomorrow.  I will post the results after I get a few days of operation on it.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Let's hope that resolves your issues.

[Avedis53]

My replacement Mcell showed up yesterday.  I unauthorized the original Mcell and authorized the replacement.  I had a few problems with the authorization of the new Mcell.  I placed it in the same location as the original Mcell but could not get a GPS lock there even though the original Mcell could.  Perhaps this was causing a problem with maintaining a connection with my iPhones....don't know. 

I moved it to another location in a southern facing window and was finally able to complete the authorization although I had to power cycle the Mcell once because it was hung up with a flashing 3G light after the GPS went solid green.  After that, it started working.

It has been functioning without a lost connection for about a day now.  I received another call today from Customer Care asking how things were going.  I told her what had happened and she is going to contact me at the end of the week to see if my problem has been resolved.  It was nice to see that AT&T was still following up on my problem.

Fingers crossed....I'll report back at the end of the week.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

I'm wondering if the issues you had with the new one were just related to activation. IOW, maybe there's a time frame before your account is "cleared" from the MicorCell database so that you can add a different sn to the same physical street address. Or may it just took longer for this MicroCell to adjust its power output in realtionship to the tower. Too many variables to know for sure. I'm impressed that support called you so quickly and is going to call you back later on this week. Maybe CustomerCare and this ACE thing is starting to work.

[Avedis53]

So here it is day 6 since I replaced my original Mcell with the replacement sent to me by AT&T.  The only dropout was due to a windstorm that went through here on Tuesday and caused a brief ISP outage in my area.

Has my problem been solved?  It would appear so, at least for the short term as my original mcell worked for a few months before acting up as previously described in this thread.

Does this Cisco-built Mcell have inherent problems?  Based on what I've read in this Mcell forum and my personal experience, I'd have to say yes.  That being said, I certainly appreciate the help I received from AT&T's Customer Care people and from Otto Pylot, our ACE-in-the-hole on the Mcell forum.  A Kudo for you!

I think it is worthwhile to note that while it is important to troubleshoot the Mcell by trying the suggestions brought up in this forum, do not beat you head against the wall if they don't work and realize there is a likely probability that you too might have a defective Mcell.  Mine was, yet it displayed solid green indicator lights the whole time I was having connection problems.  I insisted that AT&T replace my Mcell and they happily did so free of charge as mine was still under warranty.

Unless something comes up, I consider my case closed.  Good luck to you all in resolving your Mcell problems.

[thompwil]

No luck with mine either, I called AT&T and have a replacement on the way. Hopefully this will do the trick.

[oakes]

Mine started doing this over the last few weeks.  I just don't get the rock solid for several months then this.  Nice to see others with the issue makes you feel a bit better about the possibility of a fix, but a bit annoying just the same.  As OP mentioned ATT support offers no help other then replacing unit.

Mine is hard wired to a U-Verse modem/router which is less then 5' away.  My U-Verse inet actually stopped working every few weeks after we got the service which tech support said was normal and I just had to deal with that.  I finally complained enough they sent a tech out and replaced the modem/router which I haven't rebooted it in several months now.  Device is in a window, always keeps full green status, works great after a reset for a short time.

A month or two after I got it the 3g signal would turn red, but it would still work fine.  I read on here somewhere a reset/unplug etc routine which got it back to having all green and things were good for a few months until I started having this problem.

2 blackberry phones, both won't work when the microcell is "dead" although it shows fully online.  One of them is a z10 other is a 2 year old torch.

This device is a primary reason i'm still with ATT as we have minimal coverage in our location, and when it's working the microcell is great.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

I'm beginning to wonder if Cicso's newer MicroCell builds are using faulty or sub-standard chipsets because they seem to develop issues after less than a year of use. Out of curisoity, what is the hardware version number of your MicroCell? It's located on the sticker underneath the unit. My original unit was a hardware version 1.0 and it developed issues after 8 months. I got it replaced with a hardware version 2.0 and it's been troublefree for almost 3 years now.

[Avedis53]

My original Mcell was built in October, 2012.  I do not know the hardware version.  The replacement Mcell was built in March, 2012 (although refurbished) and is hardware version 2.0.  I've had no dropouts since I started using the replacement two weeks ago.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Interesting. Well, let's see what happens over time.

[oakes]

Mine says HW Version 3.2

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Thanks. So there are 2.0 and 3.2 in the "wild". That might be a good thing to keep track of.

[Stephen570]

Has anyone seen their connection issues spontaneously be resolved?

We've had problems with the microcell for quite some time. Every one or two days our phones would lose the microcell connection and we would need to reboot the microcell to get service. I've tried just about all the troubleshooting steps and configurations with no change. That is until a few days ago.

As of a few days ago we're staying connected to the microcell, with no changes on our end (was a firmware update pushed out? tower configuration changed?), but now our phones' batteries are draining at a very high rate. We can barely make it through half a day before the batteries are ready to die. (I've also posted a message in the thread about battery drain on microcells.)

The connection problem (which seems to be resolved) and the battery drain are not specific to a particular brand/model of phone. We've seen the issues with a mix of the following phones: Samsung Focus, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4s, HTC WP 8X, and Nokia Lumia 920.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Unfortunately, there's no telling when AT&T pushes out an update. They are usually done in the middle of the night and if the MicroCell reboots successfully (solid green 3G light), you'll never know. It could be any number of things including local tower maintenance affecting the power output (transmision strength) which the MicoCell uses to adjust its output. The battery drain issue is another one of those issues that have multiple "fixes" if that's a good term.  iOS 6.x does seem to have battery issues and not just with the MicroCell but other phones, I don't know. Leaving WiFi on all of the time does help some because the phone will only use the MicroCell for calls leaving WiFi to handle the rest. That's what I do with my iPhone. Our old Samsung 3G only phone holds a charge for a long time but the iPhone 5 needs to be charged about every two days.

[Avedis53]

Just thought I'd post an update of my status.  I've still had no reoccurrance of a dropped connection that requires a power cycling of my Mcell since I replaced it with another one provided by AT&T.  Today however, I was on my iPhone for about an hour and the call dropped.  I saw that the Mcell indicator on my iPhone was gone.   Went upstairs to check the Mcell and all lights were solid green.  I switched Airplane Mode on and off and the connection re-established itself.

So whatever happened was caused by something else other than what I previously experienced since switching Airplane Mode had no effect on re-establishing my connection with the old Mcell.

I've never had a accelerated battery drain issue as described above on any of my iPhones.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

Sounds like the MicroCell has issues similar to connecting to a tower. We just came back from a trip to Arizona and our phone worked fine, most of the time. But every now and then it would lose connection to a tower and get stuck in "Searching". It could be the same thing with the MicroCell. Interference, what ever, causes the MicroCell to start "Searching" and it just doesn't have the ability to correct itself without a reboot.

And yes, battery drain doesn't seem to be an issue with us as well. I'm beginning to wonder if it doesn't have something to do with how AT&T is allowed to adjust it's tower strength for various regions which would result in the MicroCell spending more time communicating between the phone and the MicroCell which would result in battery drain. Don't know. Just a thought.

[alecthomas]

   

		I am still having problems with my microcell, after about a year.. It has all the 3g and GSM and all the green lights where they should be, it just my iphone 4 and 4s do not say "M-Cell" except for 4 hours (Max) at the time. And then it falls off, back down to one bar, and no "M-cell" indicator. I have tried, one other microcell, three different routers and am on my second cable modem (this time an ipv6- comcast) and still cannot get the "M-cell" and full set of bars to stay on my phone for an extended time... I am really dissapointed Just chiming in, I appreciate all of your help on here Alec

[ATTCustomerCare]

Hi Alec, we received your private message and replied. We look forward to assisting you.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

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alecthomas wrote:
   

I am still having problems with my microcell, after about a year.. It has all the 3g and GSM and all the green lights where they should be, it just my iphone 4 and 4s do not say "M-Cell" except for 4 hours (Max) at the time. And then it falls off, back down to one bar, and no "M-cell" indicator. I have tried, one other microcell, three different routers and am on my second cable modem (this time an ipv6- comcast) and still cannot get the "M-cell" and full set of bars to stay on my phone for an extended time... I am really dissapointed Just chiming in, I appreciate all of your help on here Alec

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I see you contacted CustomerCare so that's a good thing. Are you running iOS 6.x on your iPhones? If so, you could try a Network Reset on your phone. That sometimes clears out any "gremlins" that may be in your OS so it can connect reliably, especially if all of the lights on the MicroCell are solid green. However, in doing so you may lose some settings so write down pw's, whatever, just in case.

[Stephen570]

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Stephen570 wrote:
...

We've had problems with the microcell for quite some time. Every one or two days our phones would lose the microcell connection and we would need to reboot the microcell to get service. I've tried just about all the troubleshooting steps and configurations with no change. That is until a few days ago.

As of a few days ago we're staying connected to the microcell, with no changes on our end (was a firmware update pushed out? tower configuration changed?), but now our phones' batteries are draining at a very high rate. We can barely make it through half a day before the batteries are ready to die. (I've also posted a message in the thread about battery drain on microcells.)

...

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Update: we're back to the microcell droppping. Sigh.

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

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Stephen570 wrote:

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Stephen570 wrote:
...

We've had problems with the microcell for quite some time. Every one or two days our phones would lose the microcell connection and we would need to reboot the microcell to get service. I've tried just about all the troubleshooting steps and configurations with no change. That is until a few days ago.

As of a few days ago we're staying connected to the microcell, with no changes on our end (was a firmware update pushed out? tower configuration changed?), but now our phones' batteries are draining at a very high rate. We can barely make it through half a day before the batteries are ready to die. (I've also posted a message in the thread about battery drain on microcells.)

...

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Update: we're back to the microcell droppping. Sigh.

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How do you have the MicroCell set up?

[alecthomas]

Thanks Otto!

Yes I have reset just about everything on my iphone including network settings, and routers and modem.  I am running the most updated iOS version. I even got a new modem from Comcast that I am trying to see if it will help. But as of this morning, that did not help either.

I called AT&T and talked to the support folks, and they are stumped too. The ladies that I have multiple conversations are Kitty and Jamie. They are VERY nice and accomodating, but they are not sure what the problem is either.

So Kitty has a third microcell on the way. I should get it this week.

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But a question for the forum. Does altitude matter for the microcell placement? I have a functioning cable outlet near a cabiinet in the kitchen that I could easily run the wiring to the top of the cabinet, thus making it about 9 feet high and two feet from a window. Just curious, is there anything inherentley beneficial to putting th MC higher? Thanks much

Alec

[Otto Pylot ACE - Professor]

That's an interesting question that hasn't come up before to my knowledge. My MicroCell is on the edge of a desk next to the window. The router is about 10' away and 4' up. I recently moved the router for the very reason you ask your question, for better coverage. That simple adjustment in height on my router significantly improved the transmission quality for WiFi to the furthest spot away in our house (which is my chair in the family room). I don't know how the signal is propagated with the MicroCell. WiFi is always best high up because the signal goes "out and down" but the MicroCell......? You might want to to an experiment and get back to us. My feeling is that it probably won't help but you never know.

So Alec, back to your question, do you have multiple devices on  your LAN and how do you have the MicroCell connected? You may want to consider port forwarding to a static IP. That's what I do and my connection has been rock solid for almost 3 years now even with turning the power off for network reconfiguration (moving the router, cleaning up the cable nest, etc).