What is happening with 3G?
MelGent's profile

Tutor

 • 

10 Messages

Friday, July 12th, 2013 6:38 PM

MC - calls dropping on IPhone then 3G light blinking

Just adding my experience to the list out there…

 

PROBLEM:   

While on a call on our IPhone, the call will suddenly go silent, we get a “Call Failed” message on Iphone which lasts for maybe 10-15 seconds until we can use the phone again.  Immediately upon the “Call Failed”, the 3G light on the MC starts blinking, and our IPhones lose their M-Cell signal and switch to the AT&T cell tower signal.  The green 3G light on the MC blinks for maybe 15 seconds, then it goes solid again and the IPhones regain their M-Cell signal.   And all is well until next dropped call.   

 

It doesn’t happen to EVERY call (no pattern noticed) and it can happen after just a minute or after 10 minutes (no pattern noticed).

This happens with the Iphones anywhere from 2 feet from the MC to 20 feet away.  (No pattern)

The other lights on the MC remain steady green (good GPS and Ethernet signals).

 

I’d estimate about 80% of our calls are dropped this way. Because of this we cannot depend on our cell phones.  Considering the switch to a different carrier if we can find one that gives us better signal in our house. 

 

 

NOTES: 

We got the Microcell because we only get 1 bar inside our house.  With the MC, we get a full 5 bars.

This is the 2nd Microcell we’ve tried with same problem occurring on both.  Tried the first one back in January and the 2nd one just the last couple weeks.

We have CenturyLink internet service, a Westell 7500 modem/router. 

We use an Iphone 4 and an Iphone 5. 

I have disable the "Automatic Handout" option in AT&T's MC settings. 

 

I've talked at length to AT&T support and CenturyLink support with no resolution.  AT&T support said their conclusion is it’s the internet/router settings.  The CenturyLink support person went over all the settings with me and said they all seem to be correct as far as she could tell. 

I've spent many, many hours trying to figure this out, but I'm not a techie so a lot of this stuff is Greek to me…especially all the settings for the network setup & modem/router. 

 

Frankly, when the MC works, it works very well.  I know people that do not have this problem, so I want to be optimistic that there is a “fix” for us, but I just don’t know enough about this stuff to figure it out.    

 

 

ACE - Expert

 • 

23.9K Messages

11 years ago

That is great! Thanks for reporting back. 

Tutor

 • 

10 Messages

11 years ago

Well, it worked fine for a couple weeks, then last week we started experiencing dropped calls again.  Also in the morning occasionally the 3G light on the MC is blinking red and I must power off.   (Not sure if these are related.)  Not sure what else to do at this point.  I suspect our Internet service is the culprit.

 

 

ACE - Expert

 • 

23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Hmmm, I don't want to sound like I'm passing the buck but it may be CenturyLink. The MicroCell needs a constant, stable interent connection and things like packet loss and speed can affect the MicroCell. It sounds like the changes  you made last time produced a little more stability in the connection. The blinking red 3G light can be an indicator of a hardware failure but more likely it was an update that was pushed by AT&T, and when the MicroCell re-booted, the re-boot didn't complete correctly and the MicroCell thinks it's broken. You may have too many devices sharing your router. The MicroCell can support up to four voice or data users at once. I assigned my MicroCell the first IP address in my DHCP table to give it priority. You might want to try that. Or you can deregister/reregister, do a hard reset if you haven't done those already.

Tutor

 • 

10 Messages

10 years ago

It's almost a year later and our Microcell has been working fine.  I didn't have to do anything else after the last post...it just seemed to straighten itself out.  We don't lose calls anymore at all, even after a power outage, the connection holds. 

 

I am about to help a neighbor with their Microcell settings, so I thought I would just update this post while I was back here looking at the technical details. 

ACE - Expert

 • 

23.9K Messages

10 years ago

Take a look at the Tech Guide (link in my sig). You may find some useful information there.

Tutor

 • 

10 Messages

10 years ago

I'm getting an error when I click on the link for the User Guide...

 

Professor

 • 

2.2K Messages

10 years ago

I get a Lithium error statement when I try to access the Tech Guide also.

ACE - Expert

 • 

23.9K Messages

10 years ago

I was just informed of this. I can get to the AT&T guide (which, imo, is pretty much useless) but my Tech Guide is lost in the ether somewhere. AT&T is working on fixing the link but I'm concerned that because it's not an "official" AT&T document, that Lithium is having issues linking it. It did work the other day. However, because I was having login issues, they had to "combine" my username from Otto Pylot to OttoPylot and maybe that broke the link. Sure hope they get it fixed today because if not, it's going to be a long weekend.

ACE - Expert

 • 

23.9K Messages

10 years ago

The link is fixed now. Whew!

Professor

 • 

2.2K Messages

10 years ago

Good!  I was beginning to think there was some skullduggery afoot.....

Not finding what you're looking for?
New to AT&T Community?
New to the AT&T Community? Start by visiting the Community How-To.
New to the AT&T Community?
Visit the Community How-To.