Microcell: You're Fired!

We've had the 3G Microcell since they became available in April, and since then we've suffered three particular symptoms that have made using the phone aggravating:

1. There's an extra third to half second of latency.

2. About every fifth call or so the calling party will, at some point, vein to sound like they're speaking in tongues. This will clear up after a few seconds, or the call will drop, one of the two.

3. Sometimes when you place a call it will just immediately say "call failed" and you have to retry.

We've had a support ticket open all that time, and it just never got any better. But the very last straw was when it started shunting incoming calls straight to voicemail without ringing.

Enough is enough. I went to Fry's and bought another YX510. With that, at least the phones work properly in the house.

I really want the unlimited calling plan from home. That plan dovetails nicely with how Scarlet and I use the phones. But the device simply doesn't work. All the more surprising given that the spent almost two years in field trials.

And, apparently I'm not alone. A lot of forum posts I see make the same complaints.

Our microcell is currently exiled at a friend's house. He says it's working ok for him, for now. We'll see. But if it does wind up being a success, then it's likely because the macro network at his house is weaker than at our house. That too would dovetail with the reports I've read. So maybe the microcell works well at filling in coverage where no coverage exists, which is arguably it's purpose, but not merely as a means to offload AT&Ts macro network (and get unlimited calls in the bargain).