ATT Wireless

Written by David Chambers.

Published on25 September 2007

ATT Wireless is one of the four major US networks, providing nationwide wireline and wireless service. With wireless segment annual revenues of $69 Billion in 2013, and over 110 million wireless subscribers, it is a major industry player.

AT&T have been enthusiastic proponents for small cells from their inception, actively launching large scale residential femtocells and investing in a major program of 40,000 enterprise and urban deployments as part of Project VIP. They are regular participants in industry conferences, webinars and panel sessions - even creating TV adverts that highlight their adoption of the technology.

Residential

ATT 3G Microcell

AT&T use the brand name 3G Microcell for their residential femtocell service, which was launched in October 2009 and available nationwide in June 2010. The end to end solution was developed and integrated by Cisco, based on ip.access technology and Cisco's small cell gateway. It is believed to have scaled beyond 1 million actively deployed units nationwide. Customers do need to have a cellular phone contract with ATT, but don't have to have ATT DSL broadband - for example the product will work via cable broadband. A product information and maintenance page can be found on the ATT website here.

Several reviews of the product can be found below:

Enterprise and Urban small cell deployments

AT&T have made heavy investments in DAS (Distributed Antenna Systems), typically spending many $100's millions annually. Most of these installation are shared with other networks, helping to defray cost. They announced in 2013 a major investment in both DAS and Small Cells to densify the network, specifically quoting 10,000 new macrocells, 1,000 new DAS and 40,000 new small cells within the following three year period, as part of their Project VIP (Velocity IP) expansion.

David Orloff, AT&T's director of Small Cell platforms, presented their experience from several suburban small cell deployment use cases at Small Cells World Summit 2014. These appear to use Alcatel-Lucent urban small cell products.

Bill Hogg, SVP Network Planning and Engineering, explained in December 2013 how they have adapted their network planning and deployment practices to cope with large numbers of small cell deployments. We've summarised his speech here.

Comments

#1 John said:

Could someone update this information? Is testing underway?

0 Quote 2008-11-17 04:00

#2 Thinkfemtocell said:

I've updated this to reflect that testing in now evolving to friendly customer trials, rather than the inhouse ones undertaken to date. I'd expect ATT could still be on track to launch commercial during 2009, but probably during the second half of the year.

0 Quote 2009-01-09 20:08

#3 Jon said:

I just spoke to an ATT rep over the phone on this moments ago and he was about to sell me one when he was halted because ATT is finishing their trial stage. He expected it to be available maybe as long as 2 months from now if not sooner.

I am very interested in seeing this device and what the plans are.

0 Quote 2009-04-21 19:12

#4 ThinkFemtocell said:

Jon, Thanks for the update - trials like this are usually strictly limited in numbers. There are reports that the trials are due to run through until 9th June, but I would expect there to be a further period where trial results are considered, actioned and then a launch program put in place. Watch this space though - there is clearly a lot of demand for the product from ATT.

0 Quote 2009-04-21 19:30

#5 Matthew said:

I was offered one of these yesterday by ATTWS - didnt buy it but then called back a few hours later & no-one had heard of it.... it took 3 layers of employees to admit to a trial ... hmmm

0 Quote 2009-08-19 02:21

#6 Will said:

This will save my life in Marina del Rey. I live on the beach and gets no reception in my home period...

0 Quote 2009-11-12 23:49

#7 Jeff said:

Does anyone know if ATT microcell is still only offered in North Carolina or is there progress in rolling out in other regions?

0 Quote 2010-01-11 19:01

#8 Nick said:

@Jeff: They have expanded the trial to San Diego and Imperial Counties in California.

0 Quote 2010-01-18 06:46

#9 mark b said:

AT&T Wireless microcell made service unstable rather than better. Local towers provide decent signal but get overloaded. No phones, including iPhone4, were sophisticated enough to gracefully handle roaming on and off the microcell. All too often, they just selected the public tower(s) instead even when in the same room as the microcell. I returned them all three after AT&T Wireless admitted these limitations.

0 Quote 2011-04-06 06:17

#10 ThinkSmallCell said:

@mark: I've noticed that ATT now offer an option for end users to configure their Microcell to avoid these dropouts, typically in places where there is already a strong outdoor signal.

From their FAQ: 'It is possible as you move around your home that your MicroCell is handing over your call to an AT&T cell tower, especially as you move further from the MicroCell. To reduce the potential dropped calls stemming from this, a new feature is now available to give you greater control over your MicroCell experience. Please go to www.att.com/3GMicroCell and select the "Manage Settings" tab. Log into the MicroCell web portal with your Personal or Business account username and password. On the "Manage your MicroCell settings page", select "disable" automatic hand-out.'

0 Quote 2013-10-25 11:02

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