If AT&T offers you a free 3G MicroCell, grab it. Once it's installed you will, indeed, have five bars all the time. It may seem odd to focus on 3G at a time when several providers claim to offer 4G but if you're in a pocket that has marginal coverage - like our office is - a solid signal at any speed makes a huge night-and-day difference.This also struck us as a great anedcote about a marketing program that starts out with a nice free offer but turns into a trying customer experience.
With the microcell we no longer worry that when we're on the phone with a client and we turn our head we'll drop the call. Chances are we won't miss many more incoming calls on our mobile phones, either. That was particularly vexing especially when you suddenly got a notice that you had a new voicemail and the phone hadn't even rung.
The Hard Way
Now that it's installed we love it. That's not to say your install is going to come off without a hitch. Ours took more than six hours, at least half a dozen transfers among AT&T tech support people and a router reset. The absolute worst part was that most of the AT&T staffers didn't seem to know much at all about the install process and they were too eager to dump us off on some other poor techie in another department. The clincher came after a serial transfer from wireless to dsl to customer service, etc. when one guy tried to upsell us to AT&T's TV service. Yes, it was enterprising but it wasn't at all relevant to our immediate need.
The Easy Way
Well, easier is probably more accurate. After faithfully following the instructions in the Getting Started Guide and the User Manual we still weren't any closer to having a working microcell. In fact, as soon as we connected the thing it somehow reset something in our router and knocked out our internet connectivity. After we diagnosed the problem, reset the router and connected the microcell in what seemed the most direct way it worked just fine.
The thing AT&T leaves out of its manuals is key. Here's how we'd do it if we had it to do over:
- Complete the online activation and wait for step 2.
- Don't lift a finger until you get a text message from AT&T offering you a complimentary Quick Start. That's their service where a tech support person stays on the phone with you until the microcell is successfully installed. The regular price is $50, and these people seem to know their stuff so it's worth the wait.
Another issue is that a lot of the advice that both the manuals and the wireless tech support people give you is to go online for helpful troubleshooting techniques. Problem is if the install procedure whacks your router, like it did ours only we hadn't figured that out yet, you can't access the procedures because you can't connect. The wireless tech support person we had on the phone actually laughed at the irony. It wasn't quite so humorous on our end.
Gotta Be A Better Way
We give the unit an A+ for performance. Now we're all 3G all the time. It's strong, it's fast and we love it.
We give AT&T an F for its technical manuals and tech support. The customer experience during the install process is terrible. They just don't get it.
Unless you hook up with the Quick Start people. They know their stuff, they'll stick with you and not palm you off on some other tech support department that doesn't know what to do, either. They'll also call you back after the install to make sure it's working.
Hey, AT&T - Here's A Freebie
The question is - why doesn't AT&T tell you about Quick Start right up front? From a marketing perspective it makes little sense to hide it and spring it as a surprise after you complete the online activation. Our suggestion - AT&T needs to splatter Quick Start all over everything that reaches the consumer at every step in the process, from the initial offer to the handoff when you pick up the unit at the retail store to the manuals to the online activation.
Sure, the text message is a great idea. Or would be, if you got it in time to make a difference.
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