3G Microcell - 3G Red Light Flashing

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@purplenoise wrote:

I just received a microcell. Mine worked for about 10 minutes today (first day) then solid red light. Reset didn't work, power cycle didn't work, and the multi step recipe involving 2 minutes of wait time between some steps did not work either.

 

So what should I do? any helpful AT&T representatives reading this forum? or do they only intervene  when they need to moderate?

 

-Aurelio

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There is a reset button on the back of the MicroCell just above the power cord I believe. Just use a straightened paper clip and insert and hold for about 10 seconds. I think there's instructions in the sparse docs that came with it. I don't remember if you hold in the reset button and power up the MicroCell or not. It's like a hard reset that sometimes fixes issues that a simple powercycle won't.

Logging in to my account, removing the microcell, and then reactivating it resolved the flashing red light problem (or at least it appears to after 24 hours).  I did notice that the progress bar during the reactivation indicated a software update was applied leading me to believe that the sudden red light syndrome is in fact related to a failed update.

Same for me ... Blinking red for a few days.  Deactivate / reactivate brought it back to life.  Before the deacivate/reactivate cycle, it only let me have 10 numbers allowed on the access point.  Now it lets me put 15.

3G upload speeds are back down to 64Kbps from 128Kbps, however.

Hopefully the new software will improve the audio problems, though.

Alright, so here's what AT&T told me....after talking to microcell tech support for a while, I was first told that there was an error confirming my GPS location.  A few minutes later, I was told that their system had a problem registering the Mcell, and finally, they told me that my M-cell tamper switch had been triggered.

Yes, that's right, they told me that my M-cell, which still had the plastic on the sides, that had never been dropped or modified or anything of that nature, had been tampered with and that there was nothing they can do for me. 

So, I chucked the piece of crap into the garbage.  My suggestion to everyone, if you have an M-cell with problems, don't deal with AT&T, do yourself a favor and go on ebay and find a 3G amplifier system that will take a cell signal and amplify it and let you enjoy cell reception with no activation and re-activation and red lights to deal with.

If you just purchased your microcell, return it and spend a few extra dollars for the amplifier system.

Thank you AT&T, the peice of garbage device that I HAD to pay for just to get reception crapped out on me and you did absolutely nothing to help me.

I agree with overclockedpc. The AT&T guys are useless when it comes to the microcell... not to mention other services. 

Here is my situation and this might help. My Service was working fine for over a year, since Sept 2011 till Jun 2012. Originally I could not activate the microcell with my address since was a new neighborhood so I used a close by address and everything was fine. 

In June I had a new internet service and I found that they did have my new address so I decided to change it. It required a new activation with the same microcell tower. Bad move... since then I've been dealing with the red 3G light going off almost every day. 

I am not sure how much longer I can keep up with this but this issue has to be related to an activation problem... location wise as this is what triggered the issue in my case. 

I wish I had a solution. will keep trying for now. 

That's great to hear! I'm glad she was able to get things running again. If you happen to remember her name or her ID, please send me a private message. 




To send a private message, you can either click on the link in this message or click on the little blue envelope in the upper right hand corner, click "compose new message" and type my username in the "Send To" field.

I'm sorry you had a difficult time with our phone support. If you happen to remember the name or the ID of the person you worked with, please send me a private message with that information.

I am glad that this thread was able to help you resolve the issue though! Our community rocks. 🙂




To send a private message, you can either click on the link in this message or click on the little blue envelope in the upper right hand corner, click "compose new message" and type my username in the "Send To" field.

"I am disturbed that AT&T is not supporting this product  better than this."

I'm disturbed that cell tower coverage in my area has deteriorated over the past several months so that I had to buy this thing in the first place. I've been a cell customer since before AT&T acquired Cingular and never had any trouble using my cell phones from home until this summer.

I'm also disturbed that all this modern technology that's supposed to reduce the need for paper, all has reset buttons that can only be used with a bent paper clip.

I too have had cell phones since the days of PacBell (before Cingular). In those days, coverage in our home was perfect. Once the technology started advancing to Edge, 3G, etc, coverage dropped considerably in our home, but the number of Verizon and AT&T towers increased. My guess is that there has been some "give and take" on AT&T and Verizon's part as far as coverage goes so that some towers in certain areas have been "given up" to accomodate either carriers technology (GSM and CDMA respectively). Also, the networks are just getting saturated, and both carriers (AT&T more so than Verizon), are just scrambling to keep up with demand and implementation of newer technologies. The MicroCell was a good idea, and still is, but is poorly implemented in a lot of cases. That's why there are forums like this so that we can one, vent our frustrations, and two, help each other work out issues.

Oh, and the idea of a reset button that has to be used with a paperclip is to prevent accidental resetting because of a surface mount button that could be easily pressed. Very common practice.