HELP - 3G light is flashing, microcell was previously working fine

There's testing going on now as we speak but it is a slow process to find, isolate, and fix the bug so it will probably be some time. What is odd is that I've never had or seen these issues out here on the West Coast so it's got to be regional and not a national problem. Still, that doesn't help those affected.

I am in Massachusetts... North of Boston.

Mine has been down for 2 weeks... the first week was spent with phone support giving poor support, not knowing about the problem and bungling the solutions...

The last week has been typical scripted answers... with little actual useful advise...

On Saturday afternoon the microcell just started working, and it worked through Sunday. Yesterday I swapped out the microcell unit (the one that was plugged in was a warantee replacement, but came damaged, so I wanted to send that unit back, and keep my original unit that was purchased new less than a year ago, since the microcell itself seems to not be the issue)... when I swapped the unit, I couldn't get a connection again and the 3G light is still blinking...

Again, support has no idea what made the unit function for a day or two, and won't look into it any further... now they say that 5/22 is the next updated date, but it will likely be longer since 3rd party contractors are now involved...

Question... how can a company as large as ATT have such difficulty in fixing something that has clearly happened before...

I was with Verizon for ~9year... 6 of those with their "Coverage Extender"... I never once had an outage like this... the only time it failed to work was in a time of a power outage when it couldn't work because internet service was down...

Anyone have a "real" update and a sense for whether this will be a repeat issue going forward?

Nobody knows for sure when the MicroCell's receive updates or what they are for. Not even Support. The connection issues (blinking green 3G) are regional problems and AT&T is working with the engineers and IT to isolate and fix the problem. It's much more complicated than you think, and time consuming. AT&T will not publically announce when a fix is expected or what the actual problem was (is). Part of the reason is that this is a regional issue so different areas (depending on the severity) will see the fix/update sooner than others. I would document your issue by sending a pm to CustomerCare detailing your issue, what you have done to correct it, your account information, the best way for them to contact you, and, most importantly, you location. I will make sure the Admins see your post.

If your service came back and then stopped, it could be something that AT&T was doing to fix it but the fix didn't hold. It might not be a bad idea to make sure your ISP hasn't done any upgrades or maintenance on their system. The blinking green 3G light can have lots of causes and, to be honest, a lot of times it has to do with the ISP and how they are handling the traffic to the AT&T servers.

As of right now, we appear to be up and running again in Russellville, AR!  Hoping it stays that way!

AT&T is trying some things in different regions so let's hope this works. Let us know.

Mine just started working again as well.  It was down for 2 weeks!  We have a landline, but don't use that number for much of anything and because of this, I missed some very important messages.  I had service when I drove in to town, but my phone behaved weirdly; contacts came up as new numbers and voicemails didn't come through.

I am incredibly disappointed in AT&T right now and their ability to detect, diagnose and fix problems.  

To play the Devil's Advocate here, a lot of these problems are regional or Service Area related. They are not system-wide. So when problems occur support will do what they can, which admittedly is little more than reading off of the script, to help correct the issue. Until the number of complaints about the same problem hit a certain level (which is not uncommon for a lot of companies), the issues are considered local and individual so the network engineers and/or IT folks are not involved. Reporting here, as well as calling support, is critical as soon as you feel  the problem is real because we can then begin to monitor it and see if there is a common theme and time frame. It's not uncommon for me to message the Admins with two or three links to posts a day. That bypasses the usual channels and gets supports attention quicker. What you can do is send a pm to CustomerCare (link in my sig) with your issues, what you have done to correct it, your account info, the best way for them to contact you, and most importantly, your location. They will contact you. You also may get contacted because of the link that I send them. However, don't expect an immedate response or fix. That does take time, especially if the problem turns out to be something your ISP has done (which is not uncommon) because that means they will have to play nice with AT&T and that can be difficult at times. With all of the mergers and acquisitions going on now, it's hard to say what the various carriers, including AT&T, are doing behind the scenes in preparation and how that is affecting VoIP.

Otto, I understand what you're saying.  However, when I talked to customer support on Wednesday, May 14th, customer support told me then the issue was on their end, they knew it and were working on it.  She said she was issuing a ticket on my behalf.   I was told to just leave my micro cell on and that it would probably be working by the next day.  When it wasn't, I called again and was shocked to discover that this support person had no clue what was going on, couldn't answer any questions and didn't see any reference to a ticket.  On Friday, May 16th, a customer support representative said the ticket didn't get issed until that day.  

I understand stuff happens and I understand that the first call will probably not trigger the proper response in a case like this.  What I don't understand is what happened between  May 14th and 16th, or over the weekend.