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ACE - Expert

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

Monday, November 13th, 2017 6:38 PM

MicroCell End of Life Has Been Announced

The official end of life for the MicroCell will be at the end of this year (2017). AT&T will stop selling the MicroCell except at Corporate Stores who still have them in stock. However, AT&T will continue to support the MicroCell for an unspecified period of time next year. Of course that will mean that most of the "support" will be trying to convince customers to upgrade their phones to WiFi-C capable phones. We will still be around as usual for support questions but don't expect to get much out of AT&T.

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AT&T Cell Booster Technical Guide by OttoPylot

Cellular Booster Guide by OttoPylot

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*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.

ACE - Sage

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116.6K Messages

6 years ago

@pgrey

I see the option in my son’s Razer phone.  I can’t find it on mine.  What’s the path?

 

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

6 years ago

@pgrey , @windracer , @nwhaynes - As a final followup on the MetroCell, I discussed this with someone I've worked with in the cellular booster industry. He said that the MetroCell's are a complete pain, very difficult to get online, and once online they don't seem to work so well. Alcatel-Lucent, the manufacturer, outsourced development of the hardware to a Chinese company called Sercomm, and now that Alcatel-Lucent has been acquired by Nokia they don't seem to want to support the units at all.

 

There is no monthly charge, no home version available, and you have to have a Premier account to get one.

Scholar

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232 Messages

6 years ago

@OttoPylot  Well, I guess I spoke too soon...it was very weird...last night at 2:50AM I got a text from AT&T indicating that the physical location of the MCell was not the same as listed.  The connection light on the MCell was red, and a reboot didn't fix it.  At that time, I couldn't reach the MCell management portal, so I assumed that they had shut down the servers.  Later this morning, I was able to get to the mgmt portal, and checked the address...it was correct.  Nevertheless, I re-entered my original address as a "new" address for the MCell and left for the day.  Around three hours after I left, I got another text telling me my MCell had been successfully activated and was ready to use.  When I got home, all lights on the MCell were green and normal, and the device is working normally again...for how long, who knows, but, for now anyways, it's back online.

Mentor

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50 Messages

6 years ago

@OttoPylot Thanks again for the info. I do have a Premier corporate account so that wouldn't be an issue (this would be for the office only, my home users would need to get WiFi-C working). I started testing WiFi-C today on my phone and it seems work better, so I'll add more users to my test pool over the next few days. But I still might look into the MetroCell option if necessary.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

6 years ago

@AnClar - it could have been a glitch in the GPS verification system. As things start to break with the MicroCell service, AT&T will be slow to fix it because the service is rapidly reaching the termination point. Switch to WiFi-C if your phone is capable and stop using the MicroCell.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

6 years ago

@windracer -  the more I dig the less appealing the MetroCell is (mostly for the reasons I gave above). If you need a cellular booster for your business I'd look into the ones that I reference in my Cellular Booster Guide, and the company that offers a wide array of cellular boosters (including the Lucent-Alcatel product). The link is in my sig line. 

Scholar

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232 Messages

6 years ago

OttoPylot Said:

 

 it could have been a glitch in the GPS verification system. As things start to break with the MicroCell service, AT&T will be slow to fix it because the service is rapidly reaching the termination point. Switch to WiFi-C if your phone is capable and stop using the MicroCell.

 

@OttoPylot I'll stop when the service goes down for the last time.  In the meantime, the MCell service is better than the WiFi-C for me.  I guess I'll have to make the switch eventually, but I'll do it when I have to.  Thanks.  Man Frustrated

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

6 years ago

@AnClar - I'm surprised that WiFi-C doesn't work well for you. I find it to have much better call quality and reliability than the MicroCell, and I had almost no issues with the MicroCell over the years. Some phones do WiFi-C better than others so it's hard to say if it's your phone or you WiFi in general. Just make sure that the MicroCell is powered off when you try WiFi-C because some phones have difficulty in determining which technology to use and that will cause call quality/connection issues. There is no way to force your phone to choose which technology to use when both, the MicroCell and WiFi-C, are enabled. You can place your phone is Airplane Mode which will disable its cellular radio so the phone will use your WiFi connection provided you've setup WiFi-C on your phone.

Master

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3.5K Messages

6 years ago


@lizdance40 wrote:

@pgrey

I see the option in my son’s Razer phone.  I can’t find it on mine.  What’s the path?

 


@lizdance40

It's under Settings->SIM&Net->SIM, on my OP. 

I was really surprised, this conversation was what prompted my going there.  Previously, I could tweak a couple of settings, in DeveloperOptions, and I could see/set the switches, one-time-only, and they'd switch themselves back off.

So, thinking I didn't need any half-baked stuff enabled, I turned them back off.

 

Today, when I went to the SIM settings, I was surprised, even more so, when the settings seem to persist, even across a reboot.

They don't actually let me do any voice/text, over WiFi, at this point (I tried quite a few combos), and NetworkCellInfoLite still says it's not fully enabled, but it seems like provisioning is changing, hopefully?

 

If you're not finding the SIM settings, just use the search at the top of the main Settings page.

It's been >3 weeks since the phone app was updated, and the last firmware was back around the 2nd week of August, so it doesn't seem like some weird thing OnePlus did, at least not obviously anyway.

 

It's never been there, but now it's plain-as-day, the way people in Europe and other non-US locations, where posts show the WiFi text/call, and VoLTE.

 

Strange stuff, I think there's some provisioning changes coming down, maybe AT&T is going to the "real RCS" or something.  

@GLIMMERMAN76, Have you heard anything, being in the "thick" of Android dev, you always seem to have these little tidbits, stored away ;-]

 

Oh yeah, almost forgot.  @OttoPylot, my OP6 has the ability to set a preference, which I bet pretty strongly weights either cell or WiFi.

ACE - Sage

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116.6K Messages

6 years ago

@pgrey

Hmm.  I have none of that. I enabled developer thinking that might trigger.  

I haven’t messed with the phone.  It’s to good the way it is.  

 

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