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.

Professor

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2.2K Messages

11 years ago

So here it is day 6 since I replaced my original Mcell with the replacement sent to me by AT&T.  The only dropout was due to a windstorm that went through here on Tuesday and caused a brief ISP outage in my area.

 

Has my problem been solved?  It would appear so, at least for the short term as my original mcell worked for a few months before acting up as previously described in this thread.

 

Does this Cisco-built Mcell have inherent problems?  Based on what I've read in this Mcell forum and my personal experience, I'd have to say yes.  That being said, I certainly appreciate the help I received from AT&T's Customer Care people and from Otto Pylot, our ACE-in-the-hole on the Mcell forum.  A Kudo for you!

 

I think it is worthwhile to note that while it is important to troubleshoot the Mcell by trying the suggestions brought up in this forum, do not beat you head against the wall if they don't work and realize there is a likely probability that you too might have a defective Mcell.  Mine was, yet it displayed solid green indicator lights the whole time I was having connection problems.  I insisted that AT&T replace my Mcell and they happily did so free of charge as mine was still under warranty.

 

Unless something comes up, I consider my case closed.  Good luck to you all in resolving your Mcell problems.

 

 

Tutor

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6 Messages

11 years ago

No luck with mine either, I called AT&T and have a replacement on the way. Hopefully this will do the trick.

Contributor

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3 Messages

11 years ago

Mine started doing this over the last few weeks.  I just don't get the rock solid for several months then this.  Nice to see others with the issue makes you feel a bit better about the possibility of a fix, but a bit annoying just the same.  As OP mentioned ATT support offers no help other then replacing unit.

 

Mine is hard wired to a U-Verse modem/router which is less then 5' away.  My U-Verse inet actually stopped working every few weeks after we got the service which tech support said was normal and I just had to deal with that.  I finally complained enough they sent a tech out and replaced the modem/router which I haven't rebooted it in several months now.  Device is in a window, always keeps full green status, works great after a reset for a short time.

 

A month or two after I got it the 3g signal would turn red, but it would still work fine.  I read on here somewhere a reset/unplug etc routine which got it back to having all green and things were good for a few months until I started having this problem.

 

2 blackberry phones, both won't work when the microcell is "dead" although it shows fully online.  One of them is a z10 other is a 2 year old torch.

 

This device is a primary reason i'm still with ATT as we have minimal coverage in our location, and when it's working the microcell is great.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

I'm beginning to wonder if Cicso's newer MicroCell builds are using faulty or sub-standard chipsets because they seem to develop issues after less than a year of use. Out of curisoity, what is the hardware version number of your MicroCell? It's located on the sticker underneath the unit. My original unit was a hardware version 1.0 and it developed issues after 8 months. I got it replaced with a hardware version 2.0 and it's been troublefree for almost 3 years now.

Professor

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2.2K Messages

11 years ago

My original Mcell was built in October, 2012.  I do not know the hardware version.  The replacement Mcell was built in March, 2012 (although refurbished) and is hardware version 2.0.  I've had no dropouts since I started using the replacement two weeks ago.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Interesting. Well, let's see what happens over time.

Contributor

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3 Messages

11 years ago

Mine says HW Version 3.2

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Thanks. So there are 2.0 and 3.2 in the "wild". That might be a good thing to keep track of.

Explorer

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27 Messages

11 years ago

Has anyone seen their connection issues spontaneously be resolved?

 

We've had problems with the microcell for quite some time. Every one or two days our phones would lose the microcell connection and we would need to reboot the microcell to get service. I've tried just about all the troubleshooting steps and configurations with no change. That is until a few days ago.

 

As of a few days ago we're staying connected to the microcell, with no changes on our end (was a firmware update pushed out? tower configuration changed?), but now our phones' batteries are draining at a very high rate. We can barely make it through half a day before the batteries are ready to die. (I've also posted a message in the thread about battery drain on microcells.)

 

The connection problem (which seems to be resolved) and the battery drain are not specific to a particular brand/model of phone. We've seen the issues with a mix of the following phones: Samsung Focus, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4s, HTC WP 8X, and Nokia Lumia 920.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

11 years ago

Unfortunately, there's no telling when AT&T pushes out an update. They are usually done in the middle of the night and if the MicroCell reboots successfully (solid green 3G light), you'll never know. It could be any number of things including local tower maintenance affecting the power output (transmision strength) which the MicoCell uses to adjust its output. The battery drain issue is another one of those issues that have multiple "fixes" if that's a good term.  iOS 6.x does seem to have battery issues and not just with the MicroCell but other phones, I don't know. Leaving WiFi on all of the time does help some because the phone will only use the MicroCell for calls leaving WiFi to handle the rest. That's what I do with my iPhone. Our old Samsung 3G only phone holds a charge for a long time but the iPhone 5 needs to be charged about every two days.

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