AT&T Microcell Installation

As most iPhone owners know, the AT&T 3G signal is spotty in many locations and especially indoors in those locations.  This has caused much internal strife for the loyal and fanatical iPhone owner. Does one switch carriers and forgo their beloved iPhone or do they bite the bullet and deal with poor signal strength?  Now AT&T hasn’t done a ton to improve the user experience although we keep hearing about this “improved network” but I have put a neat little unit into effect at my house in hopes of having a solution. The AT&T Microcell is a unit that is a bit larger than a router and connects to your high speed Internet connection and in essence gives you a personal cell tower.   Now this little beauty retails for $150 which if that was the end of the story  is not a bad price to pay for ditching your land line and having a reliable cell signal but the story goes on. As of this writing and through at least July 7,2010 there are rebates on the macrocell ranging from $50 to the full purchase price of $150. There are 2 ways you can manage your minutes over the microcell: 1) when using the microcell you can simply draw from your allotted monthly cell an minutes or 2) you can subscribe to the $20 unlimited microcell plan. If you go this route when you are on your microcell any calls made are not deducted from monthly minutes. I went this route and received a $100 mail in rebate.

So how has it been working? Well after a very simple setup (see related video) the AT&T Microcell has been a solid performer for the first few weeks. I have had a consistent 3-5 bars of signal strength on my iPhone. I will let you know how the microcell works over the long term in subsequent updates but as of right now I am pretty impressed with this little unit.