AT&T 3G Microcell Battery Drain

[Wireless_Guru]

Perhaps it's handshaking with a nearby macro cell looking to see if it needs to hand out. This is something that could be solved with a new feature that customers can set to prevent hand-outs to the macro cell. Oh wait, that feature doesn't work because it's not really available for customers to set http://forums.att.com/t5/3G-MicroCell/New-feature-Prevent-MicroCell-from-handing-out-to-cell-tower/t...

[AllGiddy]

I, too, see the battery drain on my Samsung Focus. When at home, connected to Microcell (for we get no signal from the towers), my phone will drain overnight. When I'm away from home, it can go for days. But mine is the only phone in the household that experiences it. My son's iPhone 4s doesn't exhibit this behavior.

And what's the deal with AT&T tech support on this? I called about a month ago with this complaint, and the agent told me she had never heard of this problem. She checked with her manager and he claimed he'd never heard of it either. They blamed my phone battery! (and sent me a new one -- guess what? Didn't help...)  Are they truly not aware of this or just covering it up?

[GlennWo425]

ATT,

Please add my name to the long list of users of the Microcell that has experienced the battery drain problem. I had bad reception in my house but never had a battery problem before I got the microcell. After installing the Microcell it provided great reception but I immediately noticed my battery would drain extremely fast while I was home. Did some research on the web and found multiple posts on different forums from others who have this issue with the ATT Microcell. I have seen it on my Samsung Focus i917 and now with my new Nokia Lumia 900. The work-around I have implemented is to set a Geo Reminder on my phone that reminds me when I get home to turn off my data connection. If I fail to do so, the phone won't make it through the evening before it goes dead from battery drain. Once again, I never had the problem before I got the Microcell and noticed immediately the problem once I installed the Microcell. I can't believe, as others have stated, that you are ignoring the overwhelming evidence to the existence of the problem. If you are unable to reproduce the issue in your labs and need to see this in person, I live in the Dallas area and would be glad to work with someone to show them the behavior.

Your help in looking into this problem would be greatly appeciated.

[RonV]

AT&T why do you refuse to admit that this is an issue?  I just received my new Lumia 900 and the problem of the power drain when connected is still happening.  Not only is it draining with Windows Phones it is also draining with Android.  I added my brothers Android to my Microcell while he was vising as he went to make a call and noticed his power was almost completely gone. 

When are you going to address this issue...turning off the cell data is the most painful way of addressing this issue.

[philganz]

My new Lumia 900 is exhibiting the same MicroCell drain problem. I'm on the second Lumia and battery sucks down when at the MicroCell location (10 hours with NO usage and battery was dead). I'll try turning off the MicroCell if I can get a signal. My Galaxy Note gets remarkable battery life whether on MicroCell or out-and-about. Hate to loose the phone but not worth the hassle.

[fleon888]

I agree.  I'm pretty fed up with the state of this.  I'm strongly thinking I'll move to T-mobile in a couple months when my contract is up.  From what I understand, they have a similar thing with their phones that allows wifi calling.  

This has been going on for years.  

[GlennWo425]

Nokia Answers Lumia 900 User Complaints with Software Update, Bill Credit

This is the way to handle an issue when it arises instead of ignoring its existence.  I hope someone at ATT is watching how Nokia came out of this with stronger customer satisfaction and loyalty.  I include myself in that group of loyal customers even though I did run into the data connection problem early and had to return my Nokia Lumia 900 phone for an exchange.  Bravo Nokia for Lumia response.  Shame on ATT for Microcell Battery Drain "nonresponse"!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/253801/nokia_answers_lumia_900_user_complaints_with_software_update_b...

[skier150]

Just picked up 2 new Lumia 900 phones.  Having the same problem with battery drain.

I called ATT and the TS rep said that she was not aware of the problem.  I told her it was well documented in the ATT communities.  She told me it had to do with the data side of things.

I decided to play around with some things.  I found that with the data turned on the batter drain was around 400+.  With the data turned off it was around 100.  This is with both bluetooth and wireless turned on, the phone sitting idle, and nothing downloading.

Get this... I also looked at charging and found some interesting results.  When the data was turned off, the phone was charging at around 800, and with the data turned on it was around 500.

So, not only does the battery drain faster, but the phone also charges slower.  Granted, with wifi I do not need data at home, but it is a pain to turn it off and on all the time.  ATT/Cisco needs to fix this defect!

[pderosa]

I wish that AT&T would acknowledge the issue and at least give some sort of update to show if they are working on a fix. I have a Lumia 900 and have the same battery drain issue. The only way to combat this is by turning off the cellular data while on the Microcell.

Whenever I have called AT&T with an issue about the Microcell, their answer is always that maybe Cisco rolled out an update that changed something. They never know what the updates are or even if they actually were rolled out. It would be nice if they posted a changelog somewhere or alerted users to updates.

[cpgordon]

I also have the same issue.  Service is terrible at my house (which is pathetic seeing as we're in a heavily populated area in Seattle) so we've had the Microcell for a while.  Both my Wife's phone (LG Quantum), my old Samsung Focus, and my new Lumia 900 all drain insanely fast.  When I'm at work, my battery life is great but when I'm home during the day I have to charge by 3pm.

AT&T really needs to acknowledge the problem and start coming up with a fix.  

Or hey, they could just have service that covers the city of Seattle.  I know, that's probably too much to ask...

[skier150]

---

skier150 wrote:

Just picked up 2 new Lumia 900 phones.  Having the same problem with battery drain.

I called ATT and the TS rep said that she was not aware of the problem.  I told her it was well documented in the ATT communities.  She told me it had to do with the data side of things.

I decided to play around with some things.  I found that with the data turned on the batter drain was around 400+.  With the data turned off it was around 100.  This is with both bluetooth and wireless turned on, the phone sitting idle, and nothing downloading.

Get this... I also looked at charging and found some interesting results.  When the data was turned off, the phone was charging at around 800, and with the data turned on it was around 500.

So, not only does the battery drain faster, but the phone also charges slower.  Granted, with wifi I do not need data at home, but it is a pain to turn it off and on all the time.  ATT/Cisco needs to fix this defect!

---

Some more test results.  With data ON and sitting idle with 5 bars from the MC, my phone is dead after 10 hours.  With data OFF and everything else the same, my phone is dead in about 100 hours.  WOW!

[mnbob1]

I have an iPhone 4 with the same battery drain issues mentioned here. I have noticed an interesting phenomenon with my iPhone. When I'm at home the top bar will NORMALLY (more on that in a minute) show:

(Signal strength in bars) AT&T M-Cell (wifi strength) (time) (battery percentage) (battery gauge)

When it has been asleep for more that a minute or two the (wifi strength) is replaced with 3G and takes a few seconds to change. Is it possible that the phone is going into a 3G only mode while asleep and ignoring my wifi? I have noticed that the battery drain seems to accelerate when I'm not using my phone. The AT&T tech support people are always quick to blame my wifi for battery drain which always makes me laugh. They also blamed me for how I was using my phone and blamed my iPhone. They even got Apple to change my warranty date by a few months so that Apple would exchange my iPhone 4 with a new one because AT&T thought I had a defective battery. Funny, I never had a problem with battery life a month ago before I got the Microcell.

Now, back to the NORMALLY. There is actually an AT&T recognized problem with iPhone iOS devices running iOS 5.01 and above (mine's running 5.1) where the Microcell will unexpectedly drop the phone from the cell. This can happen at any random time; during a call, sending and receiving text messages of any size either SMS or MMS, when answering an incoming call, when making an outgoing call, you name it, it's happened to me. Now this is the reason I have the Microcell since these were the things that were happening to me on the AT&T network. After "investigating" my problems they couldn't find a problem in their network so they decided that the problem was in my home. The answer to all of my problems was the "Microcell"! And they only wanted $199 and to use my broadband service that I was paying for and still charge me my normal usage rates! It took me quite a few phone calls but they wouldn't budge on the pricing or even give me a deal. Finally I had almost given up and out of desperation I asked for the telephone number of the CEO's office. That seemed to get some attention. Try it some time.

The 'problem' with the iPhone is yet to be resolved. The ticket was opened on November 17th, 2011. As of a few days ago there was no resolution date set. I call every other day or so just to let them know I'm still out here with this problem and maybe to annoy them just a little bit.  I figure I will give them until the end of April and then I may have to play the CEO card again.

As they say in AT&T tech support: "Is there anything else I can help you with today? And you have yourself a wonderful rest of your day!"

[pgeller]

Definitely an issue. I tested battery drain with a new Lumia 900 using the Nokia Diagnostics app. Consumption averages 120mA with the MicroCell off, and closer to 400mA with it on. Explains why my battery lasts 6 hours sitting at home. FYI, WiFi apparently draws little current.

[rwilkins]

The issue with the Microcell and excessive battery drain is due to how timers configured in the microcell for the UMTS RRC (Radio Resource Control) system.  To understand the problem, one must somewhat understand how the UMTS cellular network works.  I don't claim to understand it all but have gathered enough information from various sources to fit the pieces together.  RRC deals with the establishing and maintaining radio resources to handle layer 3 communications over the air between the User Equipment (UE), aka our phones, and the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), aka cell service provider (AT&T in this case).  Essentially there are five states that the communications between our phones and AT&T's 3G radio network will be in.  Each state has a different power draw to it and there are timers configured that dictate how long a device stays in each state.  The states are Cell Dedicated Channel (CELL DCH), Cell Forward Access Channel (CELL FACH), Cell Paging Channel (CELL PCH), UMTS Registration Area Paging Channel (URA PCH), and Idle.  I have not observed either of the PCH modes on AT&T, and it appears that the PCH modes may or may not be used depending on configuration by each cellular carrier.  When a call comes up or a MMS message is sent or some data access is done (checking email or websites, for instance) the normal state is CELL DCH, which also demands the most power from the phone.  After the call or data access has ceased, the celluar carrier (UTRAN) will keep the phone (UE) in the CELL DCH state for a period of time before transitioning to CELL FACH.  This transition timer is called T1.  The transition from CELL FACH to CELL PCH is held by timer T2.  The transition from CELL PCH to IDLE is held by timer T3.  What appears to be happening is that the timers set on the AT&T UTRAN and the Microcell are different by a significant number.  I have been unable to verify this personally but the best information that I have is that the AT&T UTRAN has a T1 of 10 seconds, T2 of 10 seconds, T3 is unknown but probably 0 based on my observations.  The Microcell appears to have a T1 of 240 seconds, and a T2 of 0 seconds, with T3 unknown but probably 0 seconds based on my observations.  The key here is that the T1 timer for the microcell is set so much higher than the rest of the network and causes our phones to unnecessarily stay in a high power utilization state for far longer than need to be.  There is a trade off here in terms of how responsive the phone appears to web page and email requests.  If the phone is in the CELL DCH state then a communications path is established and the phone's data requests can be made immediately.  If the phone is in the IDLE state then it first has to establish a communications path which can take a second or two before it can proceed with your data request hence giving the appearance of a slow network.

So that pretty much explains the battery drain issue.  I personally would like to see AT&T change the Microcell timers to match their macrocell network so we don't see such high battery usage when connected to the Microcell.  But then again, I'm sure the appropriate teams at AT&T already know this but have some reason why it needs to be this way.  From the outside, it presents a picture of a sub-par product and presents another opportunity for people to vent displeasure with AT&T.  The unfortunate thing is that the microcell had the chance to be a great offering but some poor choices and perhaps poor implementation have marred the utility and image of the whole thing.  Perhaps the business unit tasked with designing and implementing the Microcell are lacking in understanding of how UMTS works.  I don't know.  But there again, from the outside this looks like a reasonably simple fix that would go a long way towards making some people happier, not that AT&T, or anyone else for that matter, could please everyone.  There will always be people complaining about something.

[Rojma]

I've had the battery drain issue for almost two years across three different phones in my household with the Microcell. Well the other day the Microcell locked up and the "signal" light was red. I power cycled the Microcell and ever since then, no more battery drain! I am thinking that maybe the Microcell may have gotten a firmware update that fixes the battery drain issue and needed a reboot to properly apply the firmware. Anyone else notice any changes recently?

[A2Tanker]

I have been having the same problem across several phones, an iPhone3, iPhone 3GS, iPhone4S, Focus and now Lumia920, with the microcell on the Lumia 920 and iPhone4S are doing good to last 5-6 hours and they definitely take a long time to charge. 

[Otto Pylot ACE - Czar]

This battery drain issue is an interesting one. I have an iPhone 5 (6.0.1) and I haven't seen any unusal battery drain. In fact, neither has my son who has an iPhone 3GS nor my wife who has an old Samsung. We spent the day over at my bro-in-laws and I had my phone on (including WFi) and the battery drain didn't seem any slower or faster (he has good in-home coverage so doesn't need a MicroCell) than at home using the MicroCell. I usually keep all of the apps that I'm not using turned off on the iPhone so that may help the battery issue. Charge time for the iPhone 5 is about 2 hours from about 10% to 100%. I've been running speed tests for  the MicroCell, 4G, and LTE with my iPhone 5 and will probably post my findings next week.

[ThePagemaster]

I had a problem with this too with my captivate but when i used wifi and not 3g it was fine.