New Cell Booster not working very well

@Nemesis_Prime No. That is not how it is supposed to work. Consider yourself lucky that you were able to register/activate it. A lot of folks are struggling. AT&T is having some major issues on their backend with shutting down the 3G service and switching customers over to the new 4G/LTE service for the femtocells. Apparently the port requirements are different among other technical aspects.

While the new Cell Booster, which is still a femtocell, doesn't need the local towers to communicate it still needs it for maintenance, location checks, etc. 

I haven't received mine yet to play with but I am in communication with the Mobile Broadband group and as soon as they can answer some specific questions that I have, I will update my Tech Guide (link is in my sig line) to reflect the new Cell Booster and hopefully there  will be some useful information in there like there was for the MicroCell. Support will do what they can but all they have to go by is the Support Script that they were given, which quite often is not enough like it was for the MicroCell. If they can't help you, be polite because they are doing the best they can with what they have.

@OttoPylot It does sound like I'm farther along than most others in the forum, though still for naught, unfortunately.  I work from home and my Cell Booster is in my office room about 10' away from me, so I've been watching it and my phone all day.  My phone has connected to it a half-dozen or so times, but only for a minute or so at a time, before dropping back to the 0-1 bar outside towers.  I had to get a text for an MFA login for a web site earlier, and it took over 20 minutes for the text to come in, while my phone bounced between 0-1 bars.  The Cell Booster is essentially useless for me as-is.

I power-cycled both the Cell Booster and my phone, no change.  The app both shows the Cell Booster activated and in active communication with AT&T, and its '4G LTE' light flashes white when it's talking to my phone (showing activity, which is nice!) but it just doesn't do it very often or for very long, sadly.

Hopefully this is just a backend issue with AT&T that they'll work out soon.  I'll sit and wait to see, and yeah, I'm not going to bother calling their support on it.

FWIW, I noticed that this is the same device as the T-Mobile 4G LTE CellSpot, just in white with a grey AT&T logo versus T-Mo's black and magenta.  Hopefully that'll mean better support and reliability with two of the big three using it (Verizon appears to be using a Samsung femtocell.)

Hey there @Nemesis_Prime! We want to help. Let’s meet in a Direct Message to discuss your Cell Booster. 

Please check your Direct Message Inbox for a message I am sending you. Look for the chat icon next to the bell icon in the upper right corner of the Forums page.

Looking forward to assisting you!

Lar, AT&T Community Specialist

@Nemesis_Prime You'll just have to be patient. If the Cell Booster operates like its predecessor, once established all of the lights should remain a solid color (probably anything but red). AT&T still has lots of "issues" that IT and Engineering have to work out on the backend so it will just take time.

When you talk to Support, be kind. They are only as good as the support they receive. And if it's anything like it was with the MicroCell, they will get very little. Hence my Tech Guide. Support, at least most of them, really do want to help but they are limited.

@OttoPylot The Cell Booster actually "feels" exactly like the 3G MicroCell did -- the activation process felt the same, just via an app instead of web page, and its startup process is pretty much identical, with getting network and then GPS before going hot.

The only real difference I've noticed is that the Cell Booster no longer has a user access list, just allowing any AT&T device within its proximity to connect.

Besides, you know, that it also won't give me cell service yet :)

@Nemesis_Prime That's one of the things I'm looking at. If AT&T is recommending folks to use an app on their phone instead of web access that's a recipe for disaster, just like last time.

As far as not having an Approved Users List that to is an interesting point. If all it needs is the primary account phone number, and then allows any AT&T phone number within range to access it, that doesn't sound very secure given the range of the Cell Booster and the range of the future Cell Booster Pro.

@DisappointedWithThisCompany The Cell Booster was just rolled out to some customers about 2 weeks ago. Like any new, or updated technology there are growing pains. Was it ready for prime time? I don't think so but more and more folks are starting to get online so be patient. If not, move to Verizon.

I just received mine yesterday and didn't have any trouble getting it activated.  It took around 30 minutes or so to fully sync up with at&t though before it activated and I got my text message.

My experience since yesterday has been awesome.  My phone connects to it and has full bars everywhere in my house and so far hasn't failed over to an actual tower and I did some speed tests and with my wifi turned off I can get almost 150mbps down and almost 20mbps up through the cell booster.  Definitely glad to replace my microcell with this.

@OttoPylot  I've seen you mention in a few different threads being disappointed about the user list and I get that a little bit but honestly it's kind of nice that my truck which has an at&t based cellular remote start will be more reliable.  I don't live in an urban area though so I'm not terribly worried about an occasional person connecting to it and even if they did it's not really a huge concern to me since all of the traffic is being routed over ipsec vpn and won't really hit your local network. I also like not having to worry about adding guests when they come over (this is better than connecting everyone my wifi imo).  I honestly wish I could get one from verizon without having to have a verizon account so when I have people over their phones work without having to connect them to my wifi.

We understand the importance of needing your Cell Booster to work @DisappointedWithThisCompany.

We are here to help with the flashing lights on your Cell booster.

@nwhaynes Congrats, though I wish I had your luck.  Neither of my two iPhones will connect to the Cell Booster for more than a minute, before failing back to 0-1 bars of outside tower or No Service, which they now spend 99% of their time in (with WiFi-C off.)

I was working with an AT&T support rep for about a week, but she hasn't responded to three voicemails I've left her since Friday of last week, so it looks like she's abandoned me or given up on the issue.  Prior to that, she found that there was a PDP mismatch on the AT&T backend for my CB, but otherwise just directed me to turn off WiFi-C and powercycle my CB and phones over and over, even doing a factory reset of the CB and re-activation.  Doing a factory reset of an iPhone or buying a cheap Android phone to test are about the only things left I can think of to try from my side... sigh 😔