[...] More advice on how to set up your 3G MicroCell. [...]

We paid for the Microcell and now finally can use our phones in our home…even down in the basement! Didn't have the problems you had (thankfully)…

Very happy with their “unproduct” – something they can't really advertise because it goes against all their marketing about great coverage. Do we call ti ironic?

oops, meant to sign-in as reikob

It’s an interesting play- a Cell tower in every home- and how the ISP’s will react to this, since part of it depends on their infrastructure as well….
Overall, I’m just happy to get decent service here.

I spent three hours on the phone doing the initial setup with AT&T telling me that the problem was with my modem. The next day it started to work — turns out it was an activation issue on AT&T's part. Thing worked fine for three weeks, but stopped working when a new billing cycle started. AT&T again, this time in a cool two hours on the phone, insisted the problem had to be some change to my modem. Of course, nothing with the modem had changed since the three weeks when it was working fine. Awful, awful way to treat a customer.

I have spent a week (thats 7 days) trying to get this *&*& to work! I have listen to people chew gum talk to supervisors in the background and last but not least, I'm talking to a Dlink expert! Ow tha problem is Apple! Your equipment isn't compatible. What else???? I have purchased another router for my router (Airport Exteme) which has issues according to AT&T! I have tried every possible connection known to man and this thing still won't work. I have forwarded ports, been placed in the DMZ and nothing works. Reset, unplugged, rerouted and even held my breath for two minutes. I think it's because I am only using the antenna and not the service. Why pay for minutes when I have unlimited minutes! Ow and did I for get to tell you that I have 2 MicroCells!! One form eBay and the other from AT&T! What a joke. I figured that the one from eBay was broken so I go to AT&T and get the high dollar one. I forgot to add it's my ISP, yea thats the problem! My fibernet at 6megs can't handle this high tech piece of c%^9. My wife says I have the patience of Jobe. Not any more! Chris and Mr Morales whatever can take this antenna and &&(^ &($( 9af99wk it.
And now you tell me all I need to do is plug the microcell into a port in my router and forget all the settings!

I feel your pain. We had to switch out the equipment too, but once the bloody thing was plugged into the router, it worked like a charm. It's been about a month now and things have been great- but the “help”. Was less than helpful and I almost gave up – but it really was a simple fix in the end. Good luck!

I was all set to return my M-Cell when I stumbled across your post. All I can say is THANK YOU!. I too found the frontline service rep to have no knowledge of how to setup an M-Cell and was getting disgusted with their attitude. Thanks again.

Glad I could help!! It’s still working well for us, and after the migraine caused by the set up hassle, I’m really glad this fix is helping folks out! The question remains, however, why AT&T doesn’t post the fix themselves on their website, not that I mind the traffic..,,

I too have spent the better part of two days on the phone with AT&T support to solve this problem.
I had payed $50 to AT&T Connect Tech Services or whatever thy are called to talk to India on a bad phone line theirs, and bad phone equipment. when I insisted they call from a different phone it sounded much better.
After 4 hours on the phone today I found your post. I tried the deactivation / reactivation proceedure. After about 20 minutes I started to walk out the room and glanced at the microcell to see if it was still flashing, Utilizing “the cat food theory” (as a cat looks in the bowl to see if there is food in it, no food, look away look back, no food, look away look back, , no food,look away look back,, FOOD,) expecting to see the flashing 3G light after days of seeing flashing lights. I saw no flashing. I had to walk over and check it out up close to make sure my eyes were not lying. Checked out my phone “AT&T Microcell” is displayed.
Same on the wife’s iPhone downstairs. Yahoo!!!
Interestingly enough, The first person I talked with Monday had me do this to no avail, but today it worked. It is wired the same way today as it was then.
Thank you for keeping my sanity from going over the edge.

So glad it helped! It was a frustrating experience setting this up, but once it’s working, it’s a real blessing. No more dropped calls in the house or walking outside to get better reception!
While I really appreciate the blog traffic and helping folks, it still amazes me AT&T can’t post directions like this on their own site and solve the problem themselves. Or at least use “the google” and find my post

Thanks again and good luck with the microcell

My Microcell will not activate as well. I get a text with ERROR 102 The registered address does match the actual device location.  Ok AT&T tells me this is because I have a Rural Route address and I need my 911 address. Well where I live we do not have 911 addresses, I confirmed this with our Post Office.  How do I get around this anyone know?

I am not sure, but here’s a route to go.

Get  twitter account if you do not have one already- http://www.twitter.com

There are a bunch of customer service reps online there, including this one: https://twitter.com/#!/ATTTina

I got a better response and straight to the engineers to make this work through Twitter and help from their reps than I did through customer service.

I know this is a pain, but I hope it helps.  If they are not helping, ping me back and I’ll contact the folks who helped me sort out the microcell solution originally for you

Thank you very much.

Contact your local fire department and ask them what your 911 address is.  The federal government has wasted billions griding out the system so that each physical address in the country has a unique 911 address identification.  The police, fire and emergency services in your county know where you are and also know how to report the incident to Big Brother in terms you both will understand.

Just wanted to drop you a quick thank you for taking the time to post all this.  I’m one of those that has spent about a week on this.  I had U-Verse, and the MicroCell was working, but the calls were really garbled, and many said they couldn’t hear us clearly.  After looking into the issue, it turned out that U-Verse was the problem.  (40% packet loss).  They couldn’t fix it, so I signed up with RoadRunner instead thinking this would finally resolve it.

I purchased their Lightening service, which boasted 40Mbps down and 5Mbps up, so I figured that would be great.  Well, that didn’t work either.  After exchanging my MicroCell once in an effort to resolve the problem a supervisor at AT&T explained that the MicroCell was simply incompatible with the Motorola Surfboard modem this service comes with. (Arggg…)

So I downgraded my Roadrunner service to Turbo 20/2 and it STILL didn’t work…  AT&T was reluctant to exchange the MicroCell again, but did after I explained they had made me exchange the other prematurely.  Now I’ve got a new one (today) and am waiting for activation.

AT&T had made me change my wiring from what you recommended above, to modem – MicroCell – Router, and after 2 hours, it still hadn’t activated.  Good thing was that it didn’t spit an FTC193 (Internal connectivity error) either.  That was a first!  For those that don’t know, if you get this error during activation, AT&T will basically tell you it’s not their problem, but offer to have to speak to Connect Tech for $45.  Not fun, and I don’t think they could have solved the issue anyways.

Anyhow, I’ve since but everything back to the way it was originally (as you have it here) and am waiting to see what happens.  Another hour to go…

Wish me luck!

I hope it works- let me know!

It’s amazing hw many people come here to walk through what worked for me- and it’s still working well to this day, many months later- but the activation left me with battle scars. Once it’s up it’s great. But it definitely needs it’s own connection into the router, not modem- macrocell- computer, because that just hogs all the house bandwidth, and then you’re out both your Internet service, and no microcell.

You’d think they would have streamlined the customer service instructions at this point, not that I mind the traffic- hopefully you’ll read a few other posts as well- I’d love your feedback.

Thanks again for stopping by!

They there!  Thanx for having me.  If it’s alright with you, I’m going to expound a little more on my ordeal and also share a bit more info for everyone.  :)

Okay – It is working.  Sad thing?  It would have worked before, without nearly 16 hours on the phone with AT&T and my ISP!  The reason it wasn’t working?  AT&T Activations servers, nationwide, were down and/or slow to activate.

I had actually given up on it, but left it connected and not working on my desk.  More than 24 hours later, I got a text welcoming me to the network, so I ran over to the Microcell and found it working.  Argggggg/Yay!

I did learn a LOT about how AT&T has laid out their customer server for Microcell service though, so I’d like to share a few factoids that might help you navigate the pitfalls.

a)  The most important thing to realize is that AT&T does NOT broadcast the Microcell network status to their customer service folks.  In other words, if your device isn’t working because of them, they actually don’t know about it, unless they specifically check.  And even then, it seems that it can take as many as 5 days before internal issues become either “suspected” or”known”.

b)  As an example, if you’re in the US, try to send an MMS from your cellphone while connected to your Microcell.  As of the writing of this post, IT DOESN’T WORK!  If you call to get it fixed, they’ll spend an hour on the phone troubleshooting the problem, but there’s nothing they can do about it.  MMS does not work at the moment and they have no ETA on resolution.

c)  Last thing, and this is a BIG one.  For those (like me) that are paying for the unlimited feature, pay very close attention to your account.  Log into your Microcell control panel and have a look around.  Specifically at the approved lines if you have any.  You “should” see an orange star next to EVER NUMBER LISTED.  If you do not see this, AT&T has done to you what they tried to do to me.

They have quietly switched your account to one where only the primary number has the unlimited calling feature. Other approved numbers are actually using their own minutes while connected.  Cost of this plan: $19US.

You need to immediately call AT&T and have them verify that you’re on the REAL unlimited plan, while covers an 3G phones you approve for connectivity to your Microcell.  Once anyone connects, they’re not using their minutes.  Cost of this plan: $19US!!!

Yes, it makes no sense, but this is a very “at&t” thing to do.  Before troubleshooting all my problems, I was on the correct plan, and somewhere along the line I got switched to this new plan.  One that I’d ad, serves no purpose but to get AT&T double paid.  It’s not right, but I’m stuck with them, so…

Anyways, enjoy your hopefully working Microcells!  Thank you for your hospitality and sharing your knowledge and experience on this craziness.  It really helps to know someone got it working.  :-)

PS – The US activation issue is still going on, so don’t freak out if it’s not working.

Jon-

Thanks for this great info Jon, im currently trying to activate my MicroCell and just want to make sure the timestamp on this post is right.. As of June 8th 2011 the activation issue is still going on?

-Corey

Yep! Follow the instructions given here for the installation and make sure everything is registered before you plug it in. Then… Wait. The problems are with the entire system, so there’s no way around it. Once it does see you and it activates. You’ll be able to turn it off and on without worry, but the initial activation will probably take two days.

Also note that you won’t be able to use MMS until they fix that too. Yes. That also means you won’t get MMS until you’re out of range of the Microcell.

Good luck.

Update: Finally activated my MicroCell. After about 48 hours of letting it sit, and 3 register and unregister attempts… was even able to send MMS Thanks for y’alls help. I was about ready to let an AT&T tech have it!

Lol Corey: Glad it’s working and even gladder that MMS is working. It’s still not working for me, but I’m getting and making calls. That’s good enough for me at this point. Did you check your plan?

Just curious if you had a similar issue with that. Don’t blame you if you haven’t checked. By the time I was done getting mine working I didn’t want to talk to AT&T ever again.

Enjoy it.
Thanx again Whitney.
And to anyone else reading all this. Sorry for my typos. I’m doing all this on my iPhone.

Hi Again:  Last new bit of info for ya.  :)

Just got off the phone with AT&T.  The MMS texting problem with the MicroCell was a Florida thing, but I did get it working.  If you experience problems sending or receiving MMS while connected to your MicroCell, be sure your MTU size is set for 1492.  If your Mcell is between your modem and rounter, try setting your router for 1492 manually and moving the MicroCell behind the router.  Worked for me.

Okay.  That’s it.  I’m done now.  :)

What about us apple timecapsule folks who can’t set the MTU size?

To be honest, I have a time capsule and never had to do any of that- it just worked once we sorted the activation issues, and no problems since.  When devices (ipad/Iphone) don’t recognize the microcell, try cycling them on and off, and they usually hook back up to the mcell, no problem.

It may authenticate, but MMS won’t work.

Corey, did you go through the whole hardware disconnect/reconnect sequence or just the online register/unregistered during that 48 hours?

Open to anyone else’s suggestions. I HATEHATEHATE AT&T’s tech support as a general rule anyway but we have to have it for various reasons. I got the dumb macrocell because our home just eats cell phone signal to the point that I can have three bars one second and zero the next without moving at all in any direction.

I get the gps light full green pretty quickly but the connection light just keeps flashing. I can be patient and just let it sit if there may be hope. I know for a fact that AT&Ts servers generally have been having issues because the local (official) AT&T STORE was down for THREE DAYS last week and couldn’t even access account information to make changes.

I find it rather ironic that things such as computers and cell phones, which are SUPPOSEd to make life easier, can become SUCH a frustration in our lives, no?

Thanks in advance,

Wish I could say the same. I have had the Microcell in my home for almost a year. Up until today i have had very little problems. But today i bought an IPhone 4 and all hell broke loose. First I couldn.t get any service on the iphone 4. Called At&T. They worked with me and got the service working through the microcell ( did I mention that I have absolutely no ATT service without the microcell) 1 hour later, the microcell 3g light is blinking and none of the 4 phones we have ( 2 IPhone 4′s, 1 3gs and a little cheap 3g thing for my husband ) would work at all. Call AT&T back and they send me through 3 hours worth of nonsense, only to tell me that they will put in a repair order and may get back to me sometime next week! REALLY? And where exactly are you going to call me?

Well, that’s how they said to set it up originally in the documentation that came with my Microcell. It didn’t activate after about 30 hours. So after my own pain and suffering on the phone with ATT, they said to connect Modem->Microcell->Wifi router. It seems to be doing squat. Next it will be the ISP’s fault, apparently.

I spent today talking with my AT&T one time free service call who basically just wanted me to tell him I was very pleased with my service even though the Microcell was not working.  Called SuddenLink my internet provider who said their router did not support the IPSec Pass thru to be enabled.  The whole scenario is crazy!  I will be returning the microcell next week and will consider changing to Verizon who has better service in my area in Willis Texas.  I feel anything this complicated should have a service technician install and if there are incompatibilities they should know what systems they work with.  Who the heck knows what DHCP/MTU/bocked fragment packets are anyway????

Donna in Texas

Try turning off wi-fi on your iPhone!! For some reason I get m-cell signal when I turn wifi off on iPhone 4s