What is happening with 3G?
cbobcreson's profile

Tutor

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4 Messages

Monday, June 2nd, 2014 1:16 PM

MicroCell Recycling/Resetting

I've been having issues for nearly a week.  Light's ALL go solid green for about three seconds but then the tower appears to reset (top light goes red) and the process starts over.  Trips to an AT&T Corporate store where I was prepared to replace the tower but the talk on the phone from there w/tech support convinced me more troubleshooting was called for; second call from home to tech support when they derigisted and reregiatered the tower; third call I was told, "be patient" because they think my issue is related to a recent software update sent to all towers (the technicial claims she got the email either late Thursday or early Friday of last week).  She said the new update should take care of the issue.  Nothing yet.  Has anyone heard of this?

Contributor

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2 Messages

8 years ago

Experienced similar problem - Microcell worked fine for years then started dropping out. Called AT&T walked through some tests with tech. Determined that the AC adapter was dying and they sent out a new Microcell - next day delivery.  Do not bother to go to the AT&T as it is out of their area of expertise.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

8 years ago

Not sure what you mean. Is it AT&T support that hasn't a clue or is it the info you find here? Did you check out the Tech Guide (link in my sig)?

Contributor

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2 Messages

8 years ago

My oversight meant to say do not go to the AT&T "Store". They did not have any experience or knowledge of the microcell other than knowing they were out in the field and what they did.

That one word changes the whole meaning of the message. Is there a way to edit my response?


Tutor

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7 Messages

7 years ago

Yes! But the only light that was ever going read was the bottom one that indicates the Internet modem signal. So I reset that and of course the microcell tower began it's resetting cycle, (Green lights blinking from the top down etc) and everything will be fine and I will have five bars on my iPhone seven for a minute or two and then all of a sudden the microcell tower starts all over again with the lights going off and then coming on one at a time from top to the bottom-During which time I have no service. This is ridiculous because this is been going on for over an hour today. If I had an important phone call I wouldn't be able to take it, and I certainly can't make any right now. I live in the mountains and absolutely depend on this microcell tower and is why I pay for the expense of Comcast cable to give it broadband signals to convert to usable cell signal for my phone.

Professor

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2.2K Messages

7 years ago

Cythiajoy

 

Since you have an iPhone 7, why haven't you switched to WiFi-Calling?  It is much more reliable than the Mcell.  All you have to do is turn on WiFi Calling on your iPhone (Settings: Phone: WiFi Calling) and use Comcast's router directly instead of going through the Mcell.  Make sure to enter your home address under "Update Emergency Address " so that emergency services can find you if you call 911 on that phone. 

 

I am assuming that you don't have any non-WiFi Calling capable phones in your household when I suggest this.  I've used both and trust me, you'll never go back to the Mcell.

Tutor

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7 Messages

7 years ago

Thank you so much for this reply. I actually do use Wi-Fi calling whenever I'm having problems like today's or also whenever I'm calling someone on Facebook or through my Google email account because I know they have bad cell phone reception but they still have an Internet connection with Wi-Fi. So I do know about that feature but I did not know I could adjust the 911 settings which I've always been concerned about Because as you know if we lose power and we have no ability to make any phone calls. I wonder if I'd be able to make any phone calls at all if I lost power to my house and therefore my modems and my Internet which supplies Wi-Fi calling and the microcell tower calling.

As for today's issues, I did two things. I move the modem over more than a foot away from the microcell because it was a little too close after I had done some cleaning. When that didn't resolve the issue completely I did a hard reset on the microcell and that fixed everything.

Tutor

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7 Messages

7 years ago

Hi there. This is my second reply to you. I just try to enable Wi-Fi calling in my phone told me I had to contact AT&T in order to do that. Wonder why that is

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

7 years ago


@Cynthiajoy wrote:
Hi there. This is my second reply to you. I just try to enable Wi-Fi calling in my phone told me I had to contact AT&T in order to do that. Wonder why that is

It could be that you need a new SIM. When I upgraded my iPhone 5 to the new 5SE I just used the same SIM. Everything worked except for WiFi-C (WiFi Calling). I went down to my local AT&T Corporate Store and had them replace the SIM, for free and WiFi-C worked just fine.

Professor

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2.2K Messages

7 years ago

Even though WiFi-C is activated on my iPhone 6 and works just fine, when I went to the WiFi-C settings and tried to update my emergency address, I got the same message.

 

I power cycled my phone and the update worked once.  When I tried updating my emergency address again, I got the message again.

 

I think something is borked on AT&T's end.

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

7 years ago

@Avedis53 - Hmmm, I'll try WiFi-C and my iPhone and see what happens. Could be an IT thing.

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