While AT&T certainly deserves credit for responding well and successfully dealing with the problem, I think that some of AT&T’s great service may be due to the fact that it is good to be John Martellaro.

I have the microcell and it is great. I live in a valley in Maine where the nearest tower is 11 miles away. The microcell has allowed me to cut my land line down to local only. Combined with the lower data rates my combined home and cell bill have gone down considerably.

Phone support people are just like you and me, they respond to reasonable requests articulated in a calm way in kind, it motivates them to do what they were hired to do and go above and beyond to make customers happy. But when people call angrily to complain and accuse, however legit, and if they lack technical language to describe the issue clearly, the results are usually poor for both sides.

I seem to have heard of you somewhere in the distant past. I seem to remember you had some reasonable knowledge of computers and software.

The people! Explain me a difference between simple iphone verizon, 3g, 4g I think now to order in American what at present is better?

It amazes me that the Femto-cell never took off until they changed the name to Micro-cell.  An actual micro-cell might fit in your front room, they are quite a large cabinet sized affair.

Anyway, O2 trailed femto-cells in the UK and decided that because of problems like these that they wouldn’t be worth releasing to the general public.  Then last year (I think) Vodafone released their own femto-cell.  This is a shame, because I’m stuck with O2 and they seem to be the network with the worst coverage in the UK.

It’s as if AT&Ts; website developers never expected a 3G Microcell customer to change the wireless number.

Actually, they did, there’s an easy way to do just that, however the chronology you chose in changing your number either wasn’t considered (unlikely) or perhaps couldn’t/doesn’t work for some reason.

Clearly, the correct way to do this process has not been made obvious to MicroCell owners, nor have all CSRs been taught to ask/check to see whether a MicroCell is attached to the master number prior to porting in a new number to the primary line.  At the very least, if the chronology cannot be changed or automatted on AT&T’s end, MicroCell owners should be made aware of the need to deactivate their MicroCell prior to number changes and porting on the MicroCell’s admin page, and CSRs should know to check if a MicroCell is in use.  Otherwise, as you have unfortunately learned, they’ll to be stuck when the master number/primary line does NOT automatically transfer to the MicroCell, as happens with your online account management login credentials.

Here’s the correct way to do this this process:

BEFORE porting your number, log into the AT&T MicroCell ‘Settings’ webpage.  At the top of the first page, below your device’s serial number and other status/account info, click on the handy link: ‘Disconnect Your 3G MicroCell Device’.  Confirm your intentions on the next page and your MicroCell will be immediately wiped and disconnected from the current primary number for your account. 

Now port the desired number to the primary line.  Once that is done and you can make/receive calls, check to be certain that you can access your AT&T online ‘My Wireless’ account management page with your new mobile number and current password.  If that works, go to the ‘Set up and activate 3G MicroCell’ link on AT&T’s main MicroCell page and then register/setup your MicroCell just as you did before.

Using the method above I successfully decommissioned our MicroCell, ported in a new primary line number, and was back up and running in under an hour.