Microcell does not work now even though nothing has changed on our end

[blazent]

Advanced Technical Support says the M-Cell "was provisioned correctly and operating within limits"?  Nothing they can do.

What a piece of crap that my company had to pay for?  Anyone know the number to Verizon?

[Otto Pylot ACE - Czar]

A little more information on what isn't working, your setup, etc. would be helpful. Verizon, the grass is always greener etc etc

[blazent]

For the past 18 month our Microcell worked 99% of the time, but in the last 5 days, the bottom light (3G) flashes quite a bit and is hardly ever solid, therefore the office's 9 iPhones do not have the M-Cell icon.  I have de-activated and reactivated 2 separate times to no avail.  My IT guy assures me the the Comcast router has not changed recently and our pipe is 40 down and 12 up.

We are a small office in the Cherry Creek area of Denver, CO  (1st and Colorado) so it is not like we are in the woods.

As I said before nothing changed on our end, but ATT says it is not their problem.

BTW, 4 Verizon iPhone users in the office and that grass is very, very green!

[Otto Pylot ACE - Czar · Accepted solution]

The flasing 3G light usually means that it can't establish a connection (which you already know). That sometimes happens after an upgrade or some sort of maintenance done by AT&T in the middle of the night. AT&T support does not have access to that info (they are usually as much in the dark as the customer is) so they can't tell you anything. Have you tried priority mode (modem -> MicroCell -> router)? If not, power down, reconnect the cables, and reboot and don't move the MicroCell from its window access. Make sure Comcast is not blocking any ports, ipsec passthru in enabled, only one device is doing NAT, etc. You may have to set port forwarding to a static address as well. That shouldn't be necessary but it was the only way I could get a very stable and solid connection even with multiple updates and power outages.

[blazent]

Yeah "support" sent me that check list (AT&T 3G MicroCell Firewall and Router Settings for Advanced Installations):

1492 MTU - check (actually 1500, 1492 is for VPN to VPN in our remote office)

DHCP on - check

Port blocking off - check

MAC Address filtering off - check

IPSec Pass-Through is Enabled - check

etc..

I wish i could go priority modem but our router and switch is in a data closet, but I don't think the GPS activation will work in there?  Please tell me if I am wrong.

You answered my question with your response of: "That sometimes happens after an upgrade or some sort of maintenance done by AT&T in the middle of the night. AT&T support does not have access to that info (they are usually as much in the dark as the customer is) so they can't tell you anything."

The reason why I posted in the first place is to warn people about the risk of an M-Cell (it is not a cure for all that ails you) and more importantly - how poor and frustrating the AT& M-Cell customer service really is.

We can consider this post closed and what good is it to beat a dead horse.  Thank you Otto for all your help.  I truly do appreciate that you care.

As we all like a somewhat of happy ending:  I have had, as well as most of my co-workers with AT&T iPhone, M-Cell most of the day.  The "fix": I deactivated and reactivated today for the 3rd time AND moved the M-Cell to a corner office with the least amount of "building" in between the unit and the outside world.  Seem to work.

Whatever...