Review by Mediocrates 
UPDATED: 117 days ago
member for 1.4 years, 452 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Raleigh,Wake,NC
 Contract price not specified.
 about 5 days
 "Price competitive, 'free' unlimited service on your cell phone"
 "Device is expensive, not shipped with proper configuration, call quality is uneven, security is bizarre, can interfere w VoIP"
 "The advantage of having ONE phone for everything must be weighed against some of the problems"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I am a Sprint Cell phone customer on 5 line shared line plan. I decided to install Airave with which is Sprint's femtocell appliance/service. This creates a local cell where the device is installed and it directs all calls in and out, to your broadband connection. The advantage is that for a flat rate you get unlimited cell minutes while connected regardless of your plan.
I ordered device, it's an appliance that plugs into your router. After 2 days of trying to get it to work, I called support who immediately realized it had never been configured or provisioned correctly prior to shipping. Once this was fixed, the device did function.
When you're connected you get a double ping dial tone; this tells you you're connected to the device. The device is able to support 3 simultaneous calls @ about 40kbps per call for a maximum of 130 kbs in both directions.
One problem is that if you limit access to a specific set of phones, then ANYONE who's a Sprint customer who's not on that list CANNOT get cell phone service unless they are out of range of the device. And the range of the device is quite good. It's built to support a 5000 sq ft area. There's no middle ground. Phones have to be registered to the Airave the first time by keying *99.
Secondly, call quality is highly dependent on the quality of your broadband connection. If it's clear, has few or no dropped packets, congestion, noise then you're good to go. If you have a lot of traffic on your line, a lot of latency then you are going to be MISERABLE. It will be unusuable if the broadband is saturated enough.
Next, while I don't have numerical data to support it, I suspect there is something about it which can interfere with other VoIP services you may have. I often hear people at home complain that Vonage stops working when Airave is on. You can simply turn off the Airave device when this happens but it takes about 15 minutes to reconnect when you need it.
But overall when it works it works acceptably well. In addition the ability to drop your home line and have unlimited cell phone minutes from your house OR wherever you plug the device in, and having only one phone number is a nice feature to have and very convenient.
The Airave appliance is $100 OTC, the service $5/month. To put ONE phone number on unlimited minutes is $10/month. To put more than one phone number (shared minutes) on unlimited minutes is $20/month. So to put your family plan on unlimited minutes costs $25 month. Roughly the same as most of the unlimited VoIP services like Vonage.
Followup comments:  
WiFiguru
Formerly jnethostman
Premium
join:2005-06-21
Lodi, CA | QoS Have you messed with QoS on your router at all?
It might solve the congestion issues. | |
|  | Mediocrates
join:2008-05-27
Raleigh, NC | Re: QoS Yes I have, it's hit or miss. Airave seems much more sensitive to broadband throughput and SNR than any other VoIP I've ever worked with. | |
| nevtxjustin
join:2006-04-18
Dallas, TX
| Anecdotal femocell story This is anecdotal...
I was told a city manger moved to a new home and his city supplied Sprint phone had poor coverage. He bought a femocell and installed it in his office and didn't tell anyone to register their phone to his device.
All the city Sprint contract phones lost coverage in the city hall and the city went with AT&T.
The irony was AT&T had *no* coverage in his new home. | |
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