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Brian, Some background. My husband and I have multiple homes - East Lansing, a "cottage" up north, and my husband's family farm on the Michigan-Ohio border due south of Lansing. We both work. We both travel a lot. We generally do some work (at least email) on evenings, weekends and while on vacation. We vacation up north in the summer and spend most weekends at the farm or up north. Back in the beginning of mobile phones we first had a mobile device for the car. It weighed several pounds, had a multi-foot long antennae, and was impractical to use outside the car. But, as I recall it worked great and it even did data. (Could hookup a computer.) I don't recall the carrier. Then came the cell phone. Our first carrier was Verizon. No service at farm or cottage. Poor to no service for me at work. Dropped calls on common East Lansing travel routes of ours. Our relationship with Verizon as our cell carrier ended when they refused to honor our service contract several days prior to its expiration. They wanted us to instead renew our contract, get new equipment and select an "expanded" (= more costly for less function) service. We opted to switch carriers. We moved to Sprint. No service at farm or cottage. Spotty service at work. Dropped calls on common East Lansing travel routes of ours. Used Internet/Web browsing functionality frequently and generally successfully. Then came the iPhone. I not believe I have Apple religion. Judge for yourself. After evaluating smart phones and carrier coverage we selected iPhone based on functionality and coverage. You are right - this meant a move to ATT. But as we anticipated, our coverage improved. Great coverage at cottage. Good at farm. Lots of drops at home. But we were keeping our land line anyway and ATT indicated the MicroCell would be available "real soon". Real soon turned out to be 1.5 years, but now coverage at home is also very good. Coverage on our travels is much better - including a trip to Alaska on a friends private boat where we were general surrounded by more wild life than people. I still think iPhone and recent addition of iPad best meet our needs. I use the iPhone/iPad in all facets of day to day activities - and once in a while make a telephone call on the iPhone. I have an ATT hotspot for the iPad and am very pleased with that. The interface is also great for my husband, who expects he should be able to use a phone, even a smartphone, without any instruction/training. And he loves doing his email on the iPhone. We both prefer the iPad interface to Outlook for reading through all of it, quick responses, and deletion of "junk". My complaints with Apple are with support. Apple "geniuses" who don't know what they are doing, don't know where backup files are stored, and end up losing your data despite repeated prompting that it is critical that we don't do anything before we are sure we have sufficient backup. And then there is having to go to Novi or Ann Arbor every time the battery fails. But it looks like these issues may be fixed now that you can get support through Best Buy. Hopefully you find our behavior rational. J /Diana From: Hoort, Brian [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 5:06 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Ethernet based Cell repeaters Rich's point about the broadband is interesting. The part that astounds me is that you folks have stuck with a carrier that you don't get a good signal at home or work - arguably where you are the vast majority of your life. Until today I believed the point of having a cellular phone was to have coverage and be able to make and receive calls. You can't (without this band aide). Years ago I tried Sprint as they were the better deal at the time. It wasn't. I got poor coverage at my house. Before signing up for the contract I confirmed I could return the phone if it didn't work at my house. I went back the next day and cancelled the contract and returned the (effectively non-working) cellular phone, and went to one of their competitors. If MSU is paying for your phone, they just give a stipend and you can choose your phone and carrier. The only reason I can imagine you kept this phone with ATT and paid significant monthly carrier fees you effectively couldn't use is that you absolutely had to have an iPhone and that was only available on ATT. Is that the case? If so I need to add a chapter to my ongoing study of the fascinating behavior of Apple devotees. Have a wonderful weekend. Brian Hoort | 517-355-3776 ANR Technology Services, MSU From: Richard Wiggins [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 3:58 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Ethernet based Cell repeaters I am an AT&T cell customer in an area with lots of dropped calls. Better in the last few months, but not great. From AT&T's perspective, the MicroCell is a great deal. In particular, if they can offload traffic onto someone else's broadband infrastructure, it's a win for them. A while back they offered free Wi-Fi to customers in the thick of things in Times Square, because iPhone and iPad traffic were causing so much strain on their network. If you can get the traffic onto Wi-Fi and off cellular, AT&T wins. If you can get traffic off to a wired broadband network, it offloads the cell network, and AT&T wins. So if they can get MSU to carry their traffic for free over the campus network, then AT&T wins. AT&T does say this is for home or small business. Here is the FAQ: http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/devices/3gmicrocell.jsp?fbid=pGDWXrJpXf N A couple of questions: -- If your broadband provider is also AT&T, ie their DSL service, does this count against your DSL usage quota? http://gigaom.com/broadband/att-caps-bandwidth-meter-survey/ -- Does the Microcell just extend AT&T voice service, or does it also extend data service? Interestingly, note that you can grant your MicroCell as a minitower to serve other AT&T customers. It's a very interesting twist in the history of cellular phones. In the case of a large campus, it'd be an incentive to have individuals to get the MicroCell and grow a viral network of friends instead of paying the campus for local towers. But they don't claim this service as a campus offering. /rich On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 3:22 PM, D'Angelo, Diana <[log in to unmask]> wrote: My husband and I have been using an ATT MicroCell in our home since they were released by ATT about a year and a half ago. We live a few houses from the corner of Grand River Avenue and Hagadorn. It's pretty much a dead zone there. (Our campus offices are not much better.) We had been complaining to ATT for over a year that we couldn't get service in our home. When the MicroCells came out we got a letter from ATT letting us know and giving us a coupon so we would not be charged for the MicroCell. Zero one-time cost, zero additional recurring cost for the MicroCell - because of the poor coverage at both home and work. The MicroCell was pretty easy to setup, although it took a while to go through its first time stuff. Have only had to reboot a couple of times. Call dropping much better - from pretty much guaranteed without MicroCell to rarely. Note that for a phone to be able to use the MicroCell the MicroCell "administrator" must first go to a website and authorize the phone number of the 3G cellphone device that will use the MicroCell. Diana E. D'Angelo Associate Director University Data Resource Administrator Enterprise Information Stewardship Michigan State University 409 Computer Center East Lansing, MI 48824-1046 Phone: 517-353-1861 Fax: 517-355-0141 From: John Resotko [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 2:05 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MSUNAG] Ethernet based Cell repeaters I've had an odd request, and I want to know if there is any MSU policy prohibiting it. A group of students in one of our student organizations wants to buy a small Cell repeater from AT&T, since they all have AT&T cell phones. AT&T cell phone coverage on campus is generally bad, and they are willing to pay the cost themselves, but wanted to ask before they grab a wall jack and plug in. First, I was wondering if anyone had tried to do this on campus, and how well did it work? Second, and probably more importantly, is there any specific policy from MSU Telecom. or ATS that prohibits the use of these kind of devices on the MSU campus? I don't want to approve this without checking on what current network and telecommunications policy is regarding cell repeaters. Any additional information you might have would be appreciated. Thanks. John A. Resotko Assistant Director, Systems Administration and Support Michigan State University College of Law 208 Law College Building East Lansing, MI 48824-1300 email: [log in to unmask] Phone: 517-432-6836 Fax: 517-432-6861 Member: PMI.org