Apparently not, as they can't monitor them from what's being said. If they could, it would be different.
What's you missed in the original post, and my reply, is that we were talking about WiFi. WiFi calls are VOIP.
UMA is different as well. Normally, the phone company can't track those calls either, which is why they need that battery gulping software on the phone, so that they can monitor the call from the PHONE, as it can't be monitored from the network.
These devices from Sprint, Verizon, and possibly AT&T, are using 3G, not WiFi. They act just like a regular 3G service. I'm not referring to that.
Do you believe everything you read. I know exactly what is being talking about and it's just not possible to connect a call to a normal phone without connecting to the traditional phone system. How do VOIP calls to normal phones get placed do you think?
Not knowledgeable? You're the guy who thinks VOIP calls go "into the cloud" and just get connected. You don't have a clue, instead you just attack me.
Go on, argue your point. Any point. Well you can't because you just don't have the understanding or the skill, all you can do is hang around this forum, where most people don't have a clue and make all sorts of statements knowing that no-one will call you on it, and when someone does you use ad-hominem attacks. Pitiful.
I believe you were the one with the attack. You didn't even attack me directly, but had to do so to someone else.
Your head is what is in a cloud. Bring it back down. There have been quite a few who aren't happy with your attacks.
Will using a device like this on your internet connection create a lot of traffic that may bother your ISP?
Voice uses barely anything. Data uses whatever data you use. iPhone doesn't really use much data.. and hopefully if you're sophisticated enough for this device you'll be using your own Wifi for data anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiltmon
With Femtocells, they charge you for the cell, and they charge you to run the cell and they charge you for the minutes. And they do not spend a cent on the network. What a ripoff! Instead of fixing their network like they are supposed to (and do now), they charge you to do it for them. How rude AT&T!
Yeah seems a bit rich. I can see they don't want to give away their transmitter to anyone requesting, but if you are willing to pay for the transmitter they should make the calls landline rates (or free, or half regular AT&T minutes)
Quote:
Originally Posted by hok
Like we need more radiowave, cancer@home, great.
But maybe with more nodes of less power it will be safer, maybe not.
It'd be much lower power. Much better for your brain if you use your phone at home regularly. Especially if you're in a dubious reception area, as the phone has to max out its power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rsailer
You don't get to go down the street, unless your neighbor has registered you on their device (from the screen capture in the article). It does improve your coverage at home if it was marginal. Also, you will be much less likely to be blocked from calling if their is heavy volume on the cell tower that services your home.
What, really? You set up this mini tower and your neighbours can't take advantage? That should really be encouraged or setup by default.
Do you believe everything you read. I know exactly what is being talking about and it's just not possible to connect a call to a normal phone without connecting to the traditional phone system. How do VOIP calls to normal phones get placed do you think?
It's interfaced at the end where the call is being received, if that is a telephone line(PSTN and PLMN), using E.164, usually.
Voice uses barely anything. Data uses whatever data you use. iPhone doesn't really use much data.. and hopefully if you're sophisticated enough for this device you'll be using your own Wifi for data anyway.
Of course, for data I'm using wifi. I just wasn't sure how much bandwidth would be soaked up with your own little "cell" tower.
I don't currently have a 3G phone and I'm told that the coverage in Phoenix is good so it may not be an issue when I upgrade when the new model comes out.
The concept of this would be good to improve coverage in your home, however, as many have pointed out, it seems to be abusive on AT&T's part to want to put traffic that should be on their network onto your internet connection.
I'm not convinced that half the posters here read the article well enough to make intelligent comments about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hok
Like we need more radiowave, cancer@home, great.
But maybe with more nodes of less power it will be safer, maybe not.
There hasn't been a decent causal link shown between cell phones and cancer. But thanks to overblown fears like this, the max allowable cell phone power transmission was reduced a few years ago.
Quote:
What, really? You set up this mini tower and your neighbours can't take advantage? That should really be encouraged or setup by default.
The range probably isn't enough, at least it isn't with this box.
T Mobile's Hotspot@home program sucks. I lived in a poor reception area and paid in full (around $130) for my first Tmobile wifi Hotspot phone I got because I wasn't up for a freebie. It was very flawed and kept rebooting during wifi calls. Literally shutting down and rebooting in the middle of calls. It was my only phone and my options became cellular, which dropped my calls, and wifi which rebooted and dropped my calls. I paid good money for this, plus their version of the router, which worked fine, although I ended up switching it out a few times too, to see if it was the problem. I spent hours and hours over months on the phone with their tech support, they wouldn't change anything device-wise. It was the definition of insanity, (doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result) and it drove me nuts.
If they'd replaced my phone with one that worked, that would have been great, instead they kept shipping me the same phone, which I had to wait like a week for, and the same thing would happen again. This went on for months. I was told after 3 they'd let me get a different phone, and then they said that's not their "policy" (something about me paying for it instead of getting it cheap or free when it was time, how was I supposed to wait when all my calls dropped?). After 5 of these, I gave up and bought a different model on ebay, but before I transferred all of my info to it I moved from and I got slightly less crappy service (though still not as good as I have now). I switched to AT&T as soon as the Tmobile contract was up. Not just me either, my whole family came with me. They lost a lot of money over this, and it would've been cheaper for them to just replace my phone as they damn well should have. F Tmobile, F their customer service, and F their wifi phones. Only thing I can say for them is they didn't fight us on moving our #'s to a different phone provider.
Tmobile had been just fine for years, the service kind of sucked, but at least we'd been treated well... then over this one phone it completely ended my family's relationship with Tmobile. Maybe their other phones are better, but I'm not going to put any money on it. Especially now that this is an option.
Maybe AT&T makes a killing off of this, and I agree that they really do need to improve their network, but I could use one of these in the new place I'm living (moved again). The calls are clearer than Tmobile, but do occasionally drop. I don't care if AT&T makes an extra $100 off of me (as long as there's no additional monthly service charge for this beyond my cell minutes), I just want to talk without it dropping out on clients and everyone else I talk to. I can't wait to get one.
I just want to clear up a couple of things on this post about UMA and femtocells.
First, while UMA is using IP to carry voice, it?s not a ?traditional? VoIP service. Calls actually run through T-Mobile?s voice switches. T-Mobile counts all the calls and, depending on your service, may bill you for the usage. If ATT were to do UMA, they could bill (or not) users for calls over IP. It?s not Skype or Fring, UMA is ?carrier-centric? VoIP.
Second, UMA is deeply embedded into the phone. It?s not a user client. Because of this, it doesn?t suck battery like many third party download-able VoIP clients (like those running on the iPhone).
Check out this review by PC Mag where they said the performance of the UMA-enabled Blackberry 8820 is actually 20% better than the standard 8820.
Third, the femtocells that Sprint and VZW are using today (2G CDMA) are different than what ATT is going to use. 3G femtocells are pretty rare. One of the first announced deployments was Starhub in Singapore. Note that Starhub actually warns users that there may be *increased* battery drain when your phone is connected to a femtocell.
This has to do with things the network needs to do to get the phone to find the femtocell and then keep the phone connected to the femtocell (versus drifting over to an outdoor cell). It?s too early to tell if this is will be a problem with ATT?s femto, it?s something to watch.
With ATT's massive investments in Wi-Fi, it's a bit surprising they are looking to put >$200 femtos in the home rather than using the Wi-Fi they are pushing in U-Verse and the 2Wire gateway. But really UMA and femtos are different services. Femtos are location specific, designed to improve coverage in one spot: your home. Got bad coverage at work? Too bad. UMA does improve coverage ? over any Wi-Fi, anywhere ? and it?s a better way to offer unlimited/flat rate calling plans.
Why? My house has metallic foil insulation (radiant barrier) in the roof and that effectively knocks cell signal strength/quality by half. A cell phone call isn't reliable in our house at all.
A femtocell/picocell/whatever will allow us to drop our landline.
Why? My house has metallic foil insulation (radiant barrier) in the roof and that effectively knocks cell signal strength/quality by half. A cell phone call isn't reliable in our house at all.
I know this is off the topic of AT&T's MicroCell plans - but it's an Apple forum so I'll say it anyway.
Of all the things Apple could do for the iPhone, I'd like to see an option to make & receive cell calls via Wifi. Forget a special MicroCell or whatever - just a wifi router with QoS. It wouldn't work for everyone, and Wifi QoS isn't quite up to spec yet (is it?), but it could make a real positive difference for some people. Even without QoS, our SMSes or visual voicemail could be forwarded via wifi.
At a $0 hardware cost, if call cost was the same rate then you'd only enable it if your reception was bad or you wanted less radiation while talking. Still a good thing. If it gave a better call deal it'd be brilliant (and take pressure off the 3G network, which would be good for other AT&T users).
Currently, if you are in a 'dead' zone, you can register with AT&T to send an engineer around to scan and correct the issue. They boost the signal or tune the tower or add to then network as needed and it costs the consumer nothing additional. With Femtocells, they charge you for the cell, and they charge you to run the cell and they charge you for the minutes. And they do not spend a cent on the network. What a ripoff! Instead of fixing their network like they are supposed to (and do now), they charge you to do it for them. How rude AT&T!
I think you drank the koolaid. For a year i complained monthly to att that i couldn't get a working signal at my house in florida (same phone worked fine in a 2nd home in kentucky, even though that home was built 80 years ago with stone walls almost a foot thick on the first floor). The "more bars in more places" billboard a little over a mile from my florida home only added to the insult. Each month ATT would acknowledge knowing about the problem--even the guys 'n gals in the local store knew about it--and would promise to aim a tower differently, etc., but nothing ever changed.
I bought and installed the Wi-Ex zBoost 510 (there are different models): Whereas before i would get 0 to 1 bars and couldn't move the phone to answer it or the call would drop, now i average 4 bars and haven't dropped a call in a long time. I couldn't be more pleased.
I paid close to $300 on Amazon. I agree that it doesn't seem fair to have to pay a ransom to ATT to get a working signal in the middle of a metropolitan area otherwise full of good signal areas. But life's what it is. This solved my problem.
Fwiw, Wi-Ex was selling their boosters at MWSF at considerable discounts. Call them and see if you can negotiate on the price!
I agree with the Japan comment. I have an iPhone 3G, using SoftBank, and no matter where I go in Japan (except my lead-in-the-walls military house, and even then stepping outside gets me a full signal) I always have a signal. Even high up in the mountains (camping trip) I was streaming YouTube for my friends. AT&T must suck balls if they can't have a signal everywhere in the USA, which doesn't have many mountains or skyscrapers that block signals, like Japan does.
Oh and the double-charging is fucking ridiculous. I'd rather sign up for Skype Pro and say screw you, AT&T, you don't deserve money.
Last: these bailouts are contributing to bad business practices. If we boycott AT&T in hopes of forcing them to improve, they'll just go running to the big brother and ask for a bailout, then keep doing what they were. We won't see any improvement because there is NO INCENTIVE. Bailouts are WRONG. Without the threat of going out of business, companies like AT&T can ignore their customers. Sound familiar? We are becoming socialist. Because of the government, citizens' power to change what they don't like is going away. (China, cough cough)
The T-Mobile solution sucks. It has a lot of problems. I know a couple of people in areas where their network is minimal, and so they use the UMA "solution". It's unreliable, and they have about two hours of talktime on their phones.
Man, you are so full of it. The TMO UMA solution for me has been abso-frickin'-lutely amazing.
I've had their Hotspot@Home service since it became available and here in Washington, it's been near FLAWLESS. I can count the number of dropped calls on one hand in almost a year, and we're not talking many fingers here.
Add to that, I've got a Family plan with all 5 lines filled on a 700 minute plan that rarely goes over 500 minutes a month. On UMA though, WELL over two thousand. Wife and boys can talk ALL DAY on UMA and I could care less. I work out of my house developing software and I talk to people all over the country on my cell, no minutes get burned. Voice quality is as good as it gets - most people can't believe I'm talking on my cell phone. (Blackberry) BTW, I have a FAT pipe to the Internet, so all five can be talking simultaneously and it doesn't make a hiccup.
To say that TMO sucks when you personally have apparently never used it is sadly lacking on your part. I had to signup just to say this, as it was such a blatantly BullS**t comment.
BTW, I could care less what service people use and quite frankly don't understand why TMO gets such a bad rap as I've been with them for 8 years both in So.Cal and here in WA. Have had tremendously good service and such. So, whatever floats your boat, but for me TMO has been awesome. Has saved me a ton of money over the years to boot and this Hotspot@Home is the greatest little secret that really works. BTW, I can also scan for open networks and use ANY open Wi-Fi (or closed if I have the key) and I'm not burning minutes on any of those calls either. I usually setup my Berry to save networks at client sites and then I'm good. Can't do that with a MicroCell either.
To make my network crisp and tasty, I bought the TMO router and added it, so I don't mix my data with my voice wireless. Apparently the TMO router (Linksys) has an additional chip to help sort out some of the nasties, so I actually have two wireless drops in my house hanging off my cable modem. Note that I move a TON of medical imaging data, so even with large file transfers my call quality is pristine. (I also use Throttle on my Mac to save a portion of my pipe for voice calls - this is almost mandatory otherwise FTP will take all bandwidth it can grab.)
Hey, I want an iPhone to develop for, but I don't wish to pay ATT their exorbitant fees and lousy service as a thank you. I'll just get an iTouch instead. Plus a MicroCell? No thanks.
Anyway - shouldn't DISS TMO if you personally haven't played on their field. Me, I'd recommend to anybody without hesitation.
Hey, maybe Obama will include 3G MicroCell's in that so called pork laden spending, er, stimulus bill. If he does, I might just call my representative to express my support... Maybe.
Is there some particular reason why you can't keep your politics in Political Outsider? That's where it's supposed to go. You're like "that guy", you know, the type that can't stop dropping politics into just about every discussion that's otherwise non-politic, it's not good, and usually off topic.
As with most press releases, AT&T's latest regarding their MicroCell product just doesn't match reality.
I have terrible reception on my iPhone 3G on AT&T's network. I'm not just talking about dropping from 3G to Edge. I mean I drop approximately 20-40% of my calls; the majority of drops coming in my home. Now, before anyone chimes in that maybe I should move out of the sticks, I live in NJ along the Hudson River. I walk out my door and there's the NYC skyline (approx 105th St.)
AT&T knows that there is a problem. Hence the $680 in credits I have gotten on my $70/month plan since I signed up at the end of July 08. AT&T even sent an engineer to my home to confirm what I already knew; their coverage in my town sucks (despite what their coverage maps say.) The truth of the matter is that there is no cell tower in NJ to service my town; I pull signal from across the river in Manhattan.
Now, this isn't all their fault. They've been trying to get zoning permission to build a cell tower for over two years. Apparently, one of the town's board members works for a rival mobile phone company and has been blocking their attempts (typical corrupt NJ local politics at work.) Thankfully, they finally received zoning permission and should have a tower up by the spring.
How does this relate to the article at hand? I have been dealing with Executive Customer Service/the Office of the President at AT&T (you don't get those kind of credits by dealing with first-level support.) I have repeatedly suggested they get me some kind of femtocell solution, as I've been reading all about them. Nobody I have spoken with knows what I'm talking about. I've actually had to email them links to articles like this one to explain it.
Crazy right? The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, so they'd rather give me over nine months of craptastic free service, rather than something that could actually improve my signal.
Comments
Apparently not, as they can't monitor them from what's being said. If they could, it would be different.
What's you missed in the original post, and my reply, is that we were talking about WiFi. WiFi calls are VOIP.
UMA is different as well. Normally, the phone company can't track those calls either, which is why they need that battery gulping software on the phone, so that they can monitor the call from the PHONE, as it can't be monitored from the network.
These devices from Sprint, Verizon, and possibly AT&T, are using 3G, not WiFi. They act just like a regular 3G service. I'm not referring to that.
Do you believe everything you read. I know exactly what is being talking about and it's just not possible to connect a call to a normal phone without connecting to the traditional phone system. How do VOIP calls to normal phones get placed do you think?
Not knowledgeable? You're the guy who thinks VOIP calls go "into the cloud" and just get connected. You don't have a clue, instead you just attack me.
Go on, argue your point. Any point. Well you can't because you just don't have the understanding or the skill, all you can do is hang around this forum, where most people don't have a clue and make all sorts of statements knowing that no-one will call you on it, and when someone does you use ad-hominem attacks. Pitiful.
I believe you were the one with the attack. You didn't even attack me directly, but had to do so to someone else.
Your head is what is in a cloud. Bring it back down. There have been quite a few who aren't happy with your attacks.
Will using a device like this on your internet connection create a lot of traffic that may bother your ISP?
Voice uses barely anything. Data uses whatever data you use. iPhone doesn't really use much data.. and hopefully if you're sophisticated enough for this device you'll be using your own Wifi for data anyway.
With Femtocells, they charge you for the cell, and they charge you to run the cell and they charge you for the minutes. And they do not spend a cent on the network. What a ripoff! Instead of fixing their network like they are supposed to (and do now), they charge you to do it for them. How rude AT&T!
Yeah seems a bit rich. I can see they don't want to give away their transmitter to anyone requesting, but if you are willing to pay for the transmitter they should make the calls landline rates (or free, or half regular AT&T minutes)
Like we need more radiowave, cancer@home, great.
But maybe with more nodes of less power it will be safer, maybe not.
It'd be much lower power. Much better for your brain if you use your phone at home regularly. Especially if you're in a dubious reception area, as the phone has to max out its power.
You don't get to go down the street, unless your neighbor has registered you on their device (from the screen capture in the article). It does improve your coverage at home if it was marginal. Also, you will be much less likely to be blocked from calling if their is heavy volume on the cell tower that services your home.
What, really? You set up this mini tower and your neighbours can't take advantage? That should really be encouraged or setup by default.
Do you believe everything you read. I know exactly what is being talking about and it's just not possible to connect a call to a normal phone without connecting to the traditional phone system. How do VOIP calls to normal phones get placed do you think?
It's interfaced at the end where the call is being received, if that is a telephone line(PSTN and PLMN), using E.164, usually.
Do you really want to get into detail?
Voice uses barely anything. Data uses whatever data you use. iPhone doesn't really use much data.. and hopefully if you're sophisticated enough for this device you'll be using your own Wifi for data anyway.
Of course, for data I'm using wifi. I just wasn't sure how much bandwidth would be soaked up with your own little "cell" tower.
I don't currently have a 3G phone and I'm told that the coverage in Phoenix is good so it may not be an issue when I upgrade when the new model comes out.
The concept of this would be good to improve coverage in your home, however, as many have pointed out, it seems to be abusive on AT&T's part to want to put traffic that should be on their network onto your internet connection.
Like we need more radiowave, cancer@home, great.
But maybe with more nodes of less power it will be safer, maybe not.
There hasn't been a decent causal link shown between cell phones and cancer. But thanks to overblown fears like this, the max allowable cell phone power transmission was reduced a few years ago.
What, really? You set up this mini tower and your neighbours can't take advantage? That should really be encouraged or setup by default.
The range probably isn't enough, at least it isn't with this box.
If they'd replaced my phone with one that worked, that would have been great, instead they kept shipping me the same phone, which I had to wait like a week for, and the same thing would happen again. This went on for months. I was told after 3 they'd let me get a different phone, and then they said that's not their "policy"
Tmobile had been just fine for years, the service kind of sucked, but at least we'd been treated well... then over this one phone it completely ended my family's relationship with Tmobile. Maybe their other phones are better, but I'm not going to put any money on it. Especially now that this is an option.
Maybe AT&T makes a killing off of this, and I agree that they really do need to improve their network, but I could use one of these in the new place I'm living (moved again). The calls are clearer than Tmobile, but do occasionally drop. I don't care if AT&T makes an extra $100 off of me (as long as there's no additional monthly service charge for this beyond my cell minutes), I just want to talk without it dropping out on clients and everyone else I talk to. I can't wait to get one.
First, while UMA is using IP to carry voice, it?s not a ?traditional? VoIP service. Calls actually run through T-Mobile?s voice switches. T-Mobile counts all the calls and, depending on your service, may bill you for the usage. If ATT were to do UMA, they could bill (or not) users for calls over IP. It?s not Skype or Fring, UMA is ?carrier-centric? VoIP.
Second, UMA is deeply embedded into the phone. It?s not a user client. Because of this, it doesn?t suck battery like many third party download-able VoIP clients (like those running on the iPhone).
Check out this review by PC Mag where they said the performance of the UMA-enabled Blackberry 8820 is actually 20% better than the standard 8820.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2280970,00.asp
Third, the femtocells that Sprint and VZW are using today (2G CDMA) are different than what ATT is going to use. 3G femtocells are pretty rare. One of the first announced deployments was Starhub in Singapore. Note that Starhub actually warns users that there may be *increased* battery drain when your phone is connected to a femtocell.
http://3ginthehome.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/femtocell-market-update-for-week-of-24-november-2008/
This has to do with things the network needs to do to get the phone to find the femtocell and then keep the phone connected to the femtocell (versus drifting over to an outdoor cell). It?s too early to tell if this is will be a problem with ATT?s femto, it?s something to watch.
With ATT's massive investments in Wi-Fi, it's a bit surprising they are looking to put >$200 femtos in the home rather than using the Wi-Fi they are pushing in U-Verse and the 2Wire gateway. But really UMA and femtos are different services. Femtos are location specific, designed to improve coverage in one spot: your home. Got bad coverage at work? Too bad. UMA does improve coverage ? over any Wi-Fi, anywhere ? and it?s a better way to offer unlimited/flat rate calling plans.
AT&T's "MicroCell" branding suggests a device a thousand times more significant than a femtocell
Er... why? I don't understand why "microcell" suggests this.
Er... why? I don't understand why "microcell" suggests this.
Well, it's more like 1 million times as they forgot that pico is between micro and femto.
Why? My house has metallic foil insulation (radiant barrier) in the roof and that effectively knocks cell signal strength/quality by half. A cell phone call isn't reliable in our house at all.
A femtocell/picocell/whatever will allow us to drop our landline.
If it is solid, I'm getting it.
Why? My house has metallic foil insulation (radiant barrier) in the roof and that effectively knocks cell signal strength/quality by half. A cell phone call isn't reliable in our house at all.
I know this is off the topic of AT&T's MicroCell plans - but it's an Apple forum so I'll say it anyway.
Of all the things Apple could do for the iPhone, I'd like to see an option to make & receive cell calls via Wifi. Forget a special MicroCell or whatever - just a wifi router with QoS. It wouldn't work for everyone, and Wifi QoS isn't quite up to spec yet (is it?), but it could make a real positive difference for some people. Even without QoS, our SMSes or visual voicemail could be forwarded via wifi.
At a $0 hardware cost, if call cost was the same rate then you'd only enable it if your reception was bad or you wanted less radiation while talking. Still a good thing. If it gave a better call deal it'd be brilliant (and take pressure off the 3G network, which would be good for other AT&T users).
Currently, if you are in a 'dead' zone, you can register with AT&T to send an engineer around to scan and correct the issue. They boost the signal or tune the tower or add to then network as needed and it costs the consumer nothing additional. With Femtocells, they charge you for the cell, and they charge you to run the cell and they charge you for the minutes. And they do not spend a cent on the network. What a ripoff! Instead of fixing their network like they are supposed to (and do now), they charge you to do it for them. How rude AT&T!
I think you drank the koolaid. For a year i complained monthly to att that i couldn't get a working signal at my house in florida (same phone worked fine in a 2nd home in kentucky, even though that home was built 80 years ago with stone walls almost a foot thick on the first floor). The "more bars in more places" billboard a little over a mile from my florida home only added to the insult. Each month ATT would acknowledge knowing about the problem--even the guys 'n gals in the local store knew about it--and would promise to aim a tower differently, etc., but nothing ever changed.
I bought and installed the Wi-Ex zBoost 510 (there are different models): Whereas before i would get 0 to 1 bars and couldn't move the phone to answer it or the call would drop, now i average 4 bars and haven't dropped a call in a long time. I couldn't be more pleased.
I paid close to $300 on Amazon. I agree that it doesn't seem fair to have to pay a ransom to ATT to get a working signal in the middle of a metropolitan area otherwise full of good signal areas. But life's what it is. This solved my problem.
Fwiw, Wi-Ex was selling their boosters at MWSF at considerable discounts. Call them and see if you can negotiate on the price!
http://www.wi-ex.com/
AT&T = Win
Apple = Win
Consumer = Win
Oh and the double-charging is fucking ridiculous. I'd rather sign up for Skype Pro and say screw you, AT&T, you don't deserve money.
Last: these bailouts are contributing to bad business practices. If we boycott AT&T in hopes of forcing them to improve, they'll just go running to the big brother and ask for a bailout, then keep doing what they were. We won't see any improvement because there is NO INCENTIVE. Bailouts are WRONG. Without the threat of going out of business, companies like AT&T can ignore their customers. Sound familiar? We are becoming socialist. Because of the government, citizens' power to change what they don't like is going away. (China, cough cough)
The T-Mobile solution sucks. It has a lot of problems. I know a couple of people in areas where their network is minimal, and so they use the UMA "solution". It's unreliable, and they have about two hours of talktime on their phones.
Man, you are so full of it. The TMO UMA solution for me has been abso-frickin'-lutely amazing.
I've had their Hotspot@Home service since it became available and here in Washington, it's been near FLAWLESS. I can count the number of dropped calls on one hand in almost a year, and we're not talking many fingers here.
Add to that, I've got a Family plan with all 5 lines filled on a 700 minute plan that rarely goes over 500 minutes a month. On UMA though, WELL over two thousand. Wife and boys can talk ALL DAY on UMA and I could care less. I work out of my house developing software and I talk to people all over the country on my cell, no minutes get burned. Voice quality is as good as it gets - most people can't believe I'm talking on my cell phone. (Blackberry) BTW, I have a FAT pipe to the Internet, so all five can be talking simultaneously and it doesn't make a hiccup.
To say that TMO sucks when you personally have apparently never used it is sadly lacking on your part. I had to signup just to say this, as it was such a blatantly BullS**t comment.
BTW, I could care less what service people use and quite frankly don't understand why TMO gets such a bad rap as I've been with them for 8 years both in So.Cal and here in WA. Have had tremendously good service and such. So, whatever floats your boat, but for me TMO has been awesome. Has saved me a ton of money over the years to boot and this Hotspot@Home is the greatest little secret that really works. BTW, I can also scan for open networks and use ANY open Wi-Fi (or closed if I have the key) and I'm not burning minutes on any of those calls either. I usually setup my Berry to save networks at client sites and then I'm good. Can't do that with a MicroCell either.
To make my network crisp and tasty, I bought the TMO router and added it, so I don't mix my data with my voice wireless. Apparently the TMO router (Linksys) has an additional chip to help sort out some of the nasties, so I actually have two wireless drops in my house hanging off my cable modem. Note that I move a TON of medical imaging data, so even with large file transfers my call quality is pristine. (I also use Throttle on my Mac to save a portion of my pipe for voice calls - this is almost mandatory otherwise FTP will take all bandwidth it can grab.)
Hey, I want an iPhone to develop for, but I don't wish to pay ATT their exorbitant fees and lousy service as a thank you. I'll just get an iTouch instead. Plus a MicroCell? No thanks.
Anyway - shouldn't DISS TMO if you personally haven't played on their field. Me, I'd recommend to anybody without hesitation.
Hey, maybe Obama will include 3G MicroCell's in that so called pork laden spending, er, stimulus bill. If he does, I might just call my representative to express my support... Maybe.
Is there some particular reason why you can't keep your politics in Political Outsider? That's where it's supposed to go. You're like "that guy", you know, the type that can't stop dropping politics into just about every discussion that's otherwise non-politic, it's not good, and usually off topic.
I have terrible reception on my iPhone 3G on AT&T's network. I'm not just talking about dropping from 3G to Edge. I mean I drop approximately 20-40% of my calls; the majority of drops coming in my home. Now, before anyone chimes in that maybe I should move out of the sticks, I live in NJ along the Hudson River. I walk out my door and there's the NYC skyline (approx 105th St.)
AT&T knows that there is a problem. Hence the $680 in credits I have gotten on my $70/month plan since I signed up at the end of July 08. AT&T even sent an engineer to my home to confirm what I already knew; their coverage in my town sucks (despite what their coverage maps say.) The truth of the matter is that there is no cell tower in NJ to service my town; I pull signal from across the river in Manhattan.
Now, this isn't all their fault. They've been trying to get zoning permission to build a cell tower for over two years. Apparently, one of the town's board members works for a rival mobile phone company and has been blocking their attempts (typical corrupt NJ local politics at work.) Thankfully, they finally received zoning permission and should have a tower up by the spring.
How does this relate to the article at hand? I have been dealing with Executive Customer Service/the Office of the President at AT&T (you don't get those kind of credits by dealing with first-level support.) I have repeatedly suggested they get me some kind of femtocell solution, as I've been reading all about them. Nobody I have spoken with knows what I'm talking about. I've actually had to email them links to articles like this one to explain it.
Crazy right? The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, so they'd rather give me over nine months of craptastic free service, rather than something that could actually improve my signal.
Just get a signal repeater and avoid the monthly fees.
...and you plug it into a network connection overseas...
...do you suddenly have a AT&T US microcell in a foreign country?
If this was the case, and you travel a lot, there's a HELLUVALOTTA incentive to get one of these.
[EDIT] Never mind, I read the article and GPS reception is required (dammit!)