Cell phone service (Country Club, Nokomis: house, live in, price)

[woman driver]

Hey all! I live in Nokomis. When I talk on my cell phone at my home I get my own echo. Is this just with Verizon or do other services do this because of the area?

[TamRE]

I used to get that and dropped calls in my home. I bought a microcell for my home. I have AT&T.

[Frida7]

I've never had Verison, but I've had Tmobile, Virgin Mobile, and now I have Sprint and I've never had that happen here.

[woman driver]

Last night I was talking on the phone, all of a sudden it let out a loud beep, disconnected, and told me I had left the service area. I had been in the same spot the entire time!

[woman driver]

Tamre what is a microcell?

[beninfl]

A "Microcell" is a small antenna for your house that hooks up to the Internet to make your calls. Think of it like your wifi router. It would plug into it, and then use your Internet connection instead of the cellular providers network. Cell providers used to give them to you for free if you have problems making calls at home. Now, they charge you for the microcell. You also have to use the microcell specific to your cell provider, an AT&T one wont work with Verizon, etc... It's a nice solution for "dead spots". None of this actually matters to you, though, as an echo is completely different.

An echo on the cell phone is a result of your phones "echo cancellation" and is specific to your phone and the cell provider. Often times just hanging up and redialing will fix this fluke. Some phones (mostly blackberries, I believe) actually have echo cancellation settings you can adjust. If your phones battery is low can also induce echo cancellation problems. Also other electronic devices in your nearby area such as wifi routers, home telephones, computers, laptops, and the such will also cause this sometimes. There's no perfect fix for it, but usually its one of those issues causing your echo. Change rooms, battery full, call your cell provider - those are all you can really do to try and fix it.

[woman driver]

Thank you for the info and advice beninfl! I'm going to give it a try!

[ILoveLidoBeach]

BeninFl....I have one from AT&T and I still drop calls AND at times I will literally go and sit right next to the Microcell and it will still drop the call.

There are dead spots and nothing is going to help except the carrier adding towers.

Lakewood Ranch is terrible. I have friends in the Country Club and they are always dropping call and they too have the Microcell's.

[beninfl]

Originally Posted by ILoveLidoBeach

BeninFl....I have one from AT&T and I still drop calls AND at times I will literally go and sit right next to the Microcell and it will still drop the call.

There are dead spots and nothing is going to help except the carrier adding towers.

Lakewood Ranch is terrible. I have friends in the Country Club and they are always dropping call and they too have the Microcell's.

Time for a new cell provider it sounds like! :-) If others with the microcell are having problems, that bewilders me. I would offer the advice of the Internet connection being poor, microcell being misconfigured or broken, or a dying cell phone, but if others with the microcell experience the same issues too, I'm at a loss for words.......

[jean_ji]

We have to get near a window to get two signal bars and that's spotty in the house. We have a micro cell and have five solid bars and no dropped calls with it.. DH has conference calls for work throughout the week with no problems. Don't pay full price for one, politely complain about the poor coverage here, they dropped the price for us.