What is happening with 3G?
Avedis53's profile

Professor

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2.2K Messages

Monday, February 18th, 2013 4:49 PM

Mcell requires power cycle every day to regain connection to iPhones

While I didn't encounter this problem initially when I started up my Mcell a few months ago, it has now become a daily ritual that I hope someone here can help me with.

 

My setup:

 

Motorola SB 6120 modem -> Netgear WNR3500L router -> Mcell

 

The Mcell is connected to the router with a pair of Netgear Powerline 200 Nano Adapters because my modem and router are located in the basement with no exposure to window for the Mcell to see a GPS satellite.  The connection is good.

 

My Charter ISP connection is 30 mbps down and 4 mbps and is rock solid.

 

What's happening and what I've done so far:

 

Usually once a day I will no longer see the AT&T Mcell indication at the top of my iPhone 5.  When I check my wife's iPhone 4S she has also lost the AT&T Mcell indication.

 

Turning the phones off and then on does not bring back the Mcell connection.  Switching Airplane Mode off and then on does not bring back the Mcell connection.

 

The Mcell has all solid green lights when I go to check it after seeing the lost connection.  If I power cycle the Mcell, the phones will then show an Mcell connection again until the next time they lose the connection which is usually once/day but not at any particular time.

 

I have the latest firmware on all devices.

 

When I check my router's admin page after a lost connection, the router indicates that the Mcell's IP address has not changed and it remains the same after power cycling the Mcell.

 

On the WAN page for my router, I have set the MTU size to 1492 and set the NAT Filtering to "Open" instead of "Secured".  No improvement after doing so.

 

Suspicious of the Powerline Adapters, I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the Ethernet cable from the Mcell to the Powerline Adapter to mimic a temporary loss of connection to the router to see if that affected the Mcell connection.  The Mcell connection was not lost.

 

I have not set any open ports or a static IP address for the Mcell yet.  Is what I'm experiencing indicative of this solution?  Does anyone have any other thoughts as to what try next?

 

I don't want to waste my time with an AT&T Level 1 tech support person because their suggestions are almost always worthless.  I have better luck contacting user forums and that is why I'm posting here.

 

Thank God I was able to convince AT&T to give me a Mcell for free because if I paid $200 for it, I'd be very upset right now.

 

Thanks In Advance!

 

Avedis53

 

 

___________________________________________________________

MicroCell Technical Guide by Otto Pylot


I am not an AT&T employee.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Thank you for your update and no-nonsense reply. I'm glad to hear that support is working with you in so far as shipping you a refurbed MicroCell to test out. Cisco would not have been my first choice as a mfr but that's history now. There are a lot of MicroCells without your issues (mine for one, which is going coming up on 2.5 years of continuous service) so I'm not sure if a firmware update is the answer or not. It's more like a faulty component but what ever the case, at least support is working to resolve it.

Tutor

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6 Messages

11 years ago

I too, had a very pleasant and productive conversation with AT&T’s M-cell support. As it stands, still not sure what is causing the intermittent drop outs requiring M-Cell resets. I decided to purchase the external GPS antenna from Amazon for 6 bucks and do some more experimentation; that was my suggestion to satisfy my own curiosity. I’m thinking of moving the unit a little further away from the window to a location where the tower signals may not be quite as strong. Maybe too much tower strength near the window where my phones work fine, but as they move away from the windows they lose signal (thus the need for the M-Cell). I figured it was worth a try since I’ve wasted more than 6 bucks on stupider things. If those experiments don’t work out, AT&T has agreed to replace the unit if I’m not successful. Thanks AT&T for the support, I do appreciate it.
Another curiosity,,, is there any commonality to the drop out issues and ISPs? My ISP is Comcast, maybe there is some maintenance/who knows?/modem upgrade thing that occurs that is causing the the drops? Just curious..
Thanks

Professor

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2.2K Messages

11 years ago

I tried the tower signal strength game but it didn't matter in my case.  I moved the Mcell to a spot that had the lowest number of signal bars on my iPhone (1-2) but could still get a GPS lock.  I would be curious to know if adding an external GPS antenna resolves your problem but since I've always had a solid green GPS light, I doubt it would in my case.

 

My ISP is Charter and from my understanding, this problem is independent of ISPs.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

To answer both of the above comments, it does seem that Comcast customer's have more issues than others but I think that's more of a numbers game than an actual problem with the ISP. External antennas do work very well if you have to move your MicroCell away from a window to a better position in your house. However, if the GPS light is solid green then you've got GPS lock, and unless the unit is defective and gives you a "false" reading, you're fine. You can try a network reset on your iPhone if you haven't done so already. That sometimes fixes the connecivity issue but you may lose some of your network settings so make sure you have them written down somewhere so you can quickly and easily put them back in.

Tutor

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6 Messages

11 years ago

A network reset on my I-phone is not the probable fix since my wife's android drops out too, both phones are either on the network together, or off together. At least AT&T is willing to replace my unit if I fail with the external antenna. Time will tell, but I'm not optimistic based on the info I've read so far.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Probable fix or not, it's worth a try, at least for the iPhone, but that's up to you. If the replacement unit doesn't work, then I'd pm CustomerCare (see the link in my sig), detail what's been happening, what you've done, what AT&T has done, along with your account info (phone number, etc) and see what they can do. They sometimes can get more information from the network engineers than phone support can so it's worth a shot if it's a network issue. Something is causing your MicroCell to lose connectivity and drop your phones, whehter it's the network or the MicroCell itself is hard to say.

Professor

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2.2K Messages

11 years ago

My replacement Mcell will be delivered tomorrow.  I will post the results after I get a few days of operation on it.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Let's hope that resolves your issues.

Professor

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2.2K Messages

11 years ago

My replacement Mcell showed up yesterday.  I unauthorized the original Mcell and authorized the replacement.  I had a few problems with the authorization of the new Mcell.  I placed it in the same location as the original Mcell but could not get a GPS lock there even though the original Mcell could.  Perhaps this was causing a problem with maintaining a connection with my iPhones....don't know. 

 

I moved it to another location in a southern facing window and was finally able to complete the authorization although I had to power cycle the Mcell once because it was hung up with a flashing 3G light after the GPS went solid green.  After that, it started working.

 

It has been functioning without a lost connection for about a day now.  I received another call today from Customer Care asking how things were going.  I told her what had happened and she is going to contact me at the end of the week to see if my problem has been resolved.  It was nice to see that AT&T was still following up on my problem.

 

Fingers crossed....I'll report back at the end of the week.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

I'm wondering if the issues you had with the new one were just related to activation. IOW, maybe there's a time frame before your account is "cleared" from the MicorCell database so that you can add a different sn to the same physical street address. Or may it just took longer for this MicroCell to adjust its power output in realtionship to the tower. Too many variables to know for sure. I'm impressed that support called you so quickly and is going to call you back later on this week. Maybe CustomerCare and this ACE thing is starting to work. Smiley Wink

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