New HTC One x phone keeps dropping signal from microcell

misslouis3394 · ‎07-22-2012

Five days ago I purchased a new HTC One x phone and had to return to the store to purchase a Microcell in order to use the phone in my home. Initial activation was successful. Since then, my phone keeps dropping the microcell signal--while in my home--and will not pick it back up. For example, I am not that far away from the microcell at night. I go to bed and the phone is showing five bars and the display shows the signal from the microcell. The next morning, it has dropped the microcell signal and I am at one or no bars. I take the phone into the room where the microcell is located and still it will not pick up the signal. the microcell shows all icons solid green--no flashing, no red, all systems on go. I power down and restart the phone (again) and still it will not pick up the signal. If I disconnect/reconnect the microcell and *wait* for the thing to reactivate, it will work again--for a while. Then the signal drops again and the cycle continues. This happens several times a day/night and in the meantime I only have one or no bars and cannot receive/maintain calls until I again reactivate the microcell. I have gone to the website and deactivated then reactivated the microcell. Still the problem continues. I have called and spoken with two different techs who, after suggesting I go through the above steps (again) have given different responses. One of them said there were no problems showing up at their end and the other one said it was showing that the microcell wasn't activated. I have been an att customer for many years, but I am ready to pack up all of this stuff, return it to the store and go to Verizon or Sprint because I am tired of the lack of assistance from their tech "service." I have spent over $500 on this stuff and I still have only intermittent service at my home. I have had wireless att service for a long time in this house and my older phones worked everywhere except in the basement. This is ridiculous.

radumas · ‎07-09-2012

this is useful information, as the evidence was accumulating that it was an iOS vs microcell issue

misslouis3394 · ‎07-22-2012

By the way, I did disable the automatic handoff feature and my phone still drops the signal and won't pick it back up.

...and one other thing that irritates me is that both of the techs I spoke with regarding this problem seemed surprised that it was an issue--as though this was a problem unique to me and my home. Based on other posts and replies on this forum, I see that there are a number of microcell users with similar issues. C'mon att .... a little honesty would be appreciated. I am not the only one having this problem and telling me that you can't "report it to the engineers because everything looks good" from your end doesn't cut it. There are obviously problems with this microcell that need to be addressed, and the complaints need to reach the right people in order for that to happen.

bob550 · ‎07-28-2010

I've been using an HTC One X with a two year old MicroCell for the past 6 weeks, and it's been rock solid with no dropped calls or signal dropouts. Prior to that, I would routinely get dropped calls with my HTC Inspire. However, I've not experienced a total loss of the MicroCell signal, and an inability to re-acquire. You may want to change the location of the MicroCell, even slightly. There may be interference internal to your house, such as a network router, that is causing the problem you're experiencing.

misslouis3394 · ‎07-22-2012

An update. I decided to simply return my Microcell and exchange it for another one. Guess what--it works great so far! I activated the new one yesterday and, since that time, I have had a good signal throughout most of my house. On a couple of occasions my phone dropped the signal, but then re-acquired it when moved back in range. Yeah!!! It kept the signal all night, too. Also, I placed the new Microcell in the exact same spot as the other one, so placement/interference was not the issue.

It was my plan to start with exchanging the unit--and I have to admit I didn't think that was the problem. Then, if necessary, I was going to follow instructions in the owner's manual and get a Powerline ethernet adaptor to allow me to move the microcell to a central location in my home and take some advice from this forum and possibly get an antenna. But I thought on the off chance that it was a defective unit I would start with a new one, and since I had just purchased it about a week ago I knew it would not be a problem to return it. I am happy to report that--at least so far--the new one is working fine and I do not need to purchase any additional equipment or go to any great lengths to get a better signal. For my problem, it was more a matter of quality control than any glitch in the system.