ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
MICROCELL HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED
As I mentioned back in October, and it bares repeating now, the MicroCell has reached its End Of Life as of Dec. 31st. AT&T has already stopped selling units online and the only place to find a new one from AT&T is at a corporate/retail store as long as inventory lasts. You may be able to find one on eBay but there are caveats to purchasing from there which are covered in my Tech Guide (see link in my sig line). AT&T claims that they will continue support thru a period of time next year but that is probably not true. Support will just try to get you to switch to WiFI-C (WiFi Calling) which does offer better call quality and reliability but you will still need a post paid AT&T cellular account, a phone that is capable of WiFi-C, and a service area that has been provisioned for HD Voice (which most areas should already be).
WiFi-C requires two of the same four ports that the MicroCell requires. Sometime next year AT&T will probably stop supporting/maintaining the two ports that the MicroCell uses and allocate those resources elsewhere, so even if your MicroCell continues to work in 2018, at some point in time it will cease to be able to reach the AT&T Mobility Servers, without notification, and there will be nothing that can be done.
Seriously plan on switching to a phone that is WiFi-C capable, purchase a cellular booster (CelFi or weBoost) or switch to a carrier that offers better coverage in your home.
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Award for Community Excellence Achiever*
*I am not an AT&T employee, and the views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.
*I am not an AT&T employee, and the views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.
cryptmagic
Teacher
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23 Messages
5 years ago
I atils think ATT isn't addressing the problem that non-att branded phone's are banned from wifi calling.
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117.2K Messages
5 years ago
@cryptmagic
Att doesn’t consider it their problem. I’m sure they would rather we buy their phones.
The alternate is put in a cell booster.
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
5 years ago
@cryptmagic - you can always look into other carriers to see if the grass is greener there.
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shark92651
Contributor
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1 Message
5 years ago
It's 1/4/2019 and my phone still shows a full bars connection to the Microcell and have not seen any degradation in call quality. Are they continuing the service for existing devices but stopped sale of the device? Or are they just slow to turn off the service?
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117.2K Messages
5 years ago
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
5 years ago
@shark92651 - service for the MicroCell will continue as long as AT&T maintains the 3G network. However, they will being to dismantle it sometime this year (probably around Q4). Once they start, it's anybody's guess as to which service areas they will start with and whether the MicroCell service will be shutdown at once or regionally. Support will become less reliable (more so than they are now) in hopes that customers will just start switching to WiFi-C, which is what we strongly suggest you do so that there are no surprises or interruption in service.
I've been after AT&T for quite some time now to at least send out a text message to all active MicroCell users of the shutdown beforehand but it has fallen on deaf ears, so far.
Sales of the MicroCell by AT&T were discontinued at the end of 2017 because the MicroCell had officially reached its EOL. We are now entering the second year since EOL was announced so time is becoming short. Supporting the myAT&T MicroCell Settings page will probably be the first indicator that things are winding down.
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
5 years ago
I've sent the above post to the Admins to figure out what it is.
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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117.2K Messages
5 years ago
@OttoPylot Google translate shows it’s an add for prostate and ED medicine. 😂
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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24.2K Messages
5 years ago
@lizdance40 - I sent it to Dmitriy and he confirmed that it was garden-variety Russian spam. He's blocked them and removed the post in case someone wonders what I'm talking about with the "post above".
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JenkinsEar
Mentor
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63 Messages
5 years ago
I had the old version of Microcell (Orange with Inverted-V base) but pitched it in middle of 2018 because it quit working and I had read that ATT was discontinuing Microcell service.
Last night my neighbor from across the street told me his was working just fine (I think he has the 4G version (black tower)). So has service been restored? Or is his slated to drop dead at some unannounced date? Should we invest in the 4G version (they're available all over the place - can't tell if ATT sells them or not, tho . Crappy website, ATT!)?
Thanks.
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