Geekido

A couple of weeks ago AT&T sent us a letter offering a free microcell. A microcell is like your own personal cell phone tower in your house. Since we were considering getting one anyway, we hastened to take advantage of the offer. So far the experience has been great.

Getting the Microcell

The letter offering the microcell was quite straightforward. The account holder was to bring the letter to any AT&T, and present the letter for a free microcell. AT&T offers an add-on service whereby the calls through the microcell do not count against your monthly minutes. I was surprised to find a contract for this service did not seem to be required to get the free microcell. I expected at the very least to be subjected to a sales pitch while picking it up.

Julie’s the account holder, though, she had to go pick it up. She reports that, though she had to wait a short time while they served another customer ahead of her, the process was quick and painless once it was her turn. No sales pitch at all. They just grabbed the equipment from the back, rang it up, and took the letter as payment.

Setup

Setting it up was also easy. The hardest part was resetting the password on my AT&T web site account.

The first step is activating the device via the AT&T website. This went quite smoothly, with no confusing use interface gotches. Just follow the screens and answer the questions.

After that, very simple hookup. I plugged the Ethernet cable into the Time Capsule on the table with the computers (the microcell requires a wired network connection, powered it up, and waited. The documentation said to expect up to 90 minutes for the microcell to activate. For me it only took about 20 minutes.

The microcell has a built-in GPS receiver. The documentation recommends the device be above ground level, and within 3 feet of a window to get GPS reception. I put my cell on the ground level floor of my house. Even though my device is about 10 feet from the window, and it locked on to GPS with no problem.

I did have some concern about radiation from the device. Reading the FCC statement in the documentation, the device is in compliance with health guidelines once you get 7.9 inches away. I was able to locate the microcell on the table much farther than 8″ from the places where we work.

Finally, does it work?

I left the house for a bit after installing the microcell, but before it activated. When I returned home my phone picked up the microcell quickly. Julie’s phone, sitting on the table the whole time, did not pick up the microcell until power cycled the phone.

Before the microcell, we got a sketchy 0 to 2 bars at best in the house. In the family room and basement we got no signal. With the microcell we get 5 bars in most of the house. In the family room we get 4. In the corner of the basement farthest from the microcell I got 2 bars, and was able to make a clear and stable call.