Live In An AT&T Dead Zone? There's A Fix, But It'll Cost You
It's no secret that AT&T's cell network sucks (and, yes, that is the scientific term for the state of the company's infrastructure). Fortunately, AT&T has come up with a solution to dead zones and overtaxed circuits: The AT&T 3G MicroCell, a router-like device that will let you experience the magic of using your mobile phone in your very own home! Of course, magic doesn't come free -- or cheap. AT&T is testing the MicroCell now, and is charging subscribers $150 for the box, plus $20 a month for the magic of, you know, using your own freaking phone in your own damn home.
AT&T isn't the first mobile provider to offer an in-home base station; T-Mobile and Sprint have similar devices. But T-Mobile's solution gives you unlimited calling on your landline for $10 a month, and Sprint's Airave is, well, actually it's just as bad as AT&T's Microcell, though the fees are slightly lower. AT&T's $20 monthly fee basically gives you access to the company's 3G network over the internet, using your ISP. As Gizmodo puts it:
If you are in a particularly bad spot, the 3G MicroCell will let you run your calls and data through your internet connection rather than over their shit network. Where do they get off charging for this? Femtocells will actually reduce the load on their networks. It shifts the traffic over to the internet provider you're already paying for (which I'm sure ISPs will just love). How does this earn AT&T $20 per month?
Of course, it will likely earn AT&T $20 a month many times over, given the number of people who do have spotty access at home and are locked into long-term iPhone contracts. So, get on the waiting list now, and you too can pay to help AT&T reduce traffic on its network and avoid having to build new towers.
3G MicroCells: AT&T Wants You to Pay Extra to Fix Their Own Failures
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Comments:
The external antenna I use cost about the montly fee they want to charge. It works too, I live in a no service area and don't have a land line.
We're talking changing carriers but I'm still watching Consumerist to make sure we don't step in to a bigger bucket of . . . before we do it.
Verizon offers this as well. I know, our house is a dead zone and that's what they offer as a solution.
If you would have read the comments over on Gizmodo, you would have seen it is still onerous, but someone is claiming you have to pay the $150 for the device, then you ONLY have to pay the $20 a month if you want UNLIMITED use of the voip/data service (I.E. it doesn't come out of your minutes on your plan) etc.
It still sucks that you can't have cell phone service in your own home, in an area they CLAIM you have coverage, but I would hope that Consumerist would have read the comments and checked on the validity of this salient comment before posting this.
Actually, the cost is $150 for the unit, and the $20 a month charge is optional. The extra amount gives you unlimited minutes while on your home MicroCell.
It is a ripoff, and something should be done about misleading coverage maps. But I am desperate and will be getting this as soon as it is available in my area.
$20 is for unlimited calling (not using up your "roll-over" minutes.)
There is no monthly charge if you just burn up your minutes as god intended.
Aren't most landline and VOIP accounts cheaper than that?
Wow, this is ridiculous. Just another reason to get a Google Voice number, or make arrangements with a SIP provider.
A landline with local calling only is $19.64/month before fees and taxes. Throw in caller ID, long distance and voicemail and it is a much better bargan than land line.
The comments make it sound better. The $20 for unlimited use on your internet connection might not be unreasonable.
A VoIP account or landline account with free US wide long distance is going to cost in the neighborhood of $20-$50 (excluding magic jack). Vonage is $25 I believe.
This device would also allow many people to cut back on the number of minutes they purchase, and would eat into revenue if they didn't have the fee.
iPhone people won't need this for data, only voice. The iPhone can already use your home network for data and VoIP.
Sounds like a good product. Now don't even get me started about the absurd text message charges. I used to pay $0.02 to receive and $0.10 to send on Verizon. It doesn't cost them any more to provide the service now than then.
Why when they can write a snarky headline and a sarcastic article instead?
I've found myself clicking on fewer and fewer articles in the past few months - if I didn't have AT&T I would have passed this over as well.
@Jesse: True, but I lived 1/2 mile from the T-Mobile store and had 7 calls dropped in an hour. That, in fact, is pathetic.
@keepher: Which carrier is best varies a *lot* from area to area. Where I used to live Sprint had some of the best coverage; where I live and work now, it sucks and AT&T's coverage is some of the best.
Your best bet is to ask other people in the same area who they've had good luck with.
@Orv: I think its Verizon that has coverage in my area. I just don't want to trade one pita for a bigger pita. And since my phone works with the added antenna I'm in no huge hurry.
@wrjohnston19283: My basic, no voice mail, no call waiting was running over $35 per month. Don't know where you live but if it had been that cheap I'd still have a land line.
@AustinTXProgrammer: if you can use this to get a good cell phone connection and not use up your cell phone plan's minutes for $20 per month, I would consider getting this and dropping my land line.
My wife and I both have separate land lines and cell phones.
Both are iPhones, both have spotty reception in the house and she works a lot from home and is on the phone a lot. Her cell number is her work number. Mine is as well and my landline is just for a business line I don't really use anymore.
I would need to see some reviews from actual users first before jumping in though.
You can also buy your own signal repeater and place it near a window, on your roof, or on the outside of the house. I think some you can place in the attic. I tried an inexpensive one but it was only designed to work while making calls within a 6 foot range of a base unit and the base unit had to be located 50 feet from the antenna or it produced interference. Too much hassle for me so I returned it for a refund. There are much nicer, expensive units out there though. If you rent or own a condo it might not be an option.
I just locked into an iPhone contract a month ago, and my reception actually got better. I can walk through my house now and get signals fine. No other AT&T phone other than my old school nokia 5100 worked in my house.
But this, this is just obsurd. Should be free of service charge, just a fee for the hardware.
little off topic , but i had a T mobile UMA phone which i used at home. couple of my rooms had sporadic signal issues. got the router free and later i took their @Home service and ended up saving a bunch.
I absolutely hate AT&T. I'm fortunate in the fact that I am not paying for my service since it's a company phone...but I barely get service at home. I live in a highly populated suburban city too, not in the sticks. I have to stand in the bedroom as close to the corner as I can to get any kind of usable service. It sucks.
If your phone supports 3G it most likely has WiFi (unless it's one of those dumb Blackberry Curves that doesn't have it) in which case you'd be at home and you could just use that.
Sprint will offer one free if you haggle them enough.
Same here. Hubby & I use our BB Curves over UMA at home (for free, no minutes used when you're on wifi/uma), got the router free from T-Mobile and then a year later dropped our landline and replaced it with T-mobile's $10/month @home service since we didn't want to give up our 15 year landline phone #. It's a great bargain compared to the almost $40/month we were paying Verizon for dial-tone only landline service once all the taxes and fees were added to the bill every month. My only complaint is hat the T-Mobile-branded Linksys Wifi/UMA router is 802.11g instead of 802.11n and using any other wireless router (like our 802.11n Airport) sucks the life out of our Blackberry batteries. If they don't come out with an N router soon, I may just split off our network into 2 networks and use the Airport for the computers to connect to each other and to the internet and then the T-mo router for only the phones.
$20 For customers who only have AT&T Wireless
$10 For customers who have AT&T Wireless and either AT&T Internet or a landline.
Nothing if you've got AT&T Wireless, AT&T Internet, and a landline.
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Still sounds like an lukewarm deal
@socalrob of the 24 and a half century: It is free, if you plan on using the minutes included in your plan. the $20 gives you unlimited minutes when you're using the microcell.
Ack! I would ignorantly pay the $150...but $20/month? Suck it, AT&T...I'll keep using my MagicJack!
@wrjohnston19283: Consumerist may be owned by the folks who run Consumer Reports, but they still have the same snarkiness every Gawker blog is founded on.
@squishyalt: I suppose you can route it to VoIP, so that you can experience dropouts when you use your Internet connection instead of dropouts when you stand in the wrong place. ;)
Actually why isn't AT&T forced by law to give one of these free to every consumer who lives in a published covered area and can't get good reception?
@Jesse: Your situation is actually one that this might be worth the expense for . The big problem is that this is being marketed toward people who live in areas where they should already have decent service.
@AustinTXProgrammer: A while back, someone at NASA figured out that it is cheaper to send data to the International Space Station than the same amount of data from a cell phone. True, there is the initial cost of building a space program and launching the station, but it is still cheaper if you have the astronauts drink generic Tang.
That's bullshit. You mean to tell me because their service sucks they want customers to spend $150 to get the damn thing AND pay $20 extra? If anything, they should be taking off fees because of their shoddy signals. Not only that, but that microcell uses your isp's network, not at&t's. Highway robbery if I've ever seen it.
@Jesse: What, who, how... Where did '3 stories underground' come from?
Jesse, I think people are talking about real-life expectations about real-life problems...
But for the record, I will support you not expecting Sprint/AT&T/Verizon or anybody to build a tower on the moon if you ever move there...
What is built into this to stop other people from using its connection?
Seems like a REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY bad security risk.
This is why I like Verizon. My wife and I get excellent coverage, and we can both care less about the stupid iphone.
@wrjohnston19283: And we're talking about cell phone coverage here. Your 'landlines are awesome' opinion is not applicable for people who merely want to use their cell phones in their own homes.
@The Marionette: In some areas, you can't get a decent signal regardless of the company you use. In some more rural areas, there's only one cell carrier and even they have spotty service. There's something to be said about infrastructure that just isn't there yet.
What's with all the complaints about poor coverage in one's home? Isn't that what the 30-Day risk free trial periods are about? Take the phone, try it in the areas you normally hang out in for 30 days and, if the coverage isn't want you want, return the equipment with no early termination fees...
With that, absolutely no cell phone carrier can or will guarantee coverage within a building. The idea of that is just crazy.
@wrjohnston19283: Yep. Tomorrow we'll see "Dish Network charges you $50/month to use your own damn TV in your own damn house after you spent $1,500 to buy it in the first place."
@Herbz: You enter the IMEI numbers of the phones that are allowed to use it (presumably only the phones you own, unless you're being generous...)
@MaytagRepairman: Many of those products are not fcc approved, and for good reason, they really interfer with the cell networks. Don't be surprised to find a cell phone company knocking on your door telling you that you need to turn it off, or your electronic devices getting finicky.
T-Mobile has it as well, sort of. A number of their phones with WiFi support UMA calling. Will make a VoIP call over a standard WiFi to Internet connection.
For $10 a month, you can add unlimited hotspot calling which means any call that starts on WiFi will be included and not use your minutes.
What I like about this system is any calls I make or receive while at home (I work from home a lot) are like that, and when I travel (out of the country) I turn off the cellular portion of the phone and send/receive calls as if I were still in the US.
@ldnyc:
2 things... 1. TO have unlimited WiFi calling (as in not using your minutes) you have to add the $10 a month "Unlimited Hotspot" calling plan to your account.
2. You can add a 2nd WiFi access point for the computers to connect over "N" without "splitting off the network into 2). I have multiple access points on my single subnet myself. THis way I have full coverage anywhere in the house and much of the back yard.
With TMo I am using a 700 minute plan for myself, my wife and my 12yr old. $10 for the unlimited hotspot calling and $10 for the @Home service (used it to replace Vonage).
I got my Airave from Sprint for free and no monthly charge.....and get all my calls from home now for free......ATT....what a waste of a company.
@MaytagRepairman: A signal repeater would also only be good if you could get a signal in the first place. It does no good from within a dead zone.
@Antiks: I got off Verizon because AT&T gave me better coverage in the areas I used my phone.
Six months later (when it was released), I got a stupid iPhone.
Is it me, or are these femtocells microwave ovens without the oven? I bet in the TOS by signing up for one of these hyper-wirless routers you hold these carriers harmless from any untested, non-specified, and unanticipated health concerns. A friend of mine actually has land where Verizon leased land to put up a cell tower. I am not even going to roll your eyes with how much money they pay him to have the tower located on his acreage. Even if I never get another call on it, for all the money over the years I have put into the Universal Service Fund, AT&T by God, is still going to have to support my Pacific Bell/Pacific Telesis/SBC copper landline! F.U. AT&T and the rest of you mobile operators. If you can offer free-evening and weekend minutes and make a profit, you sure as hell can give these cancer toasters for free.
@admiral_stabbin:
I LOVE MY MAGIC JACK.
Phone bill went from $400+ a year for a home phone line(its really a secondary phone anyway, our cell phones are our main phones) to $20 a year.
I shouldn't expect Sprint/AT&T/Verizon or anybody else to build a tower or signal repeter because I can't get reception due to the fact that I work 3 stories underground either.