RickNY
Premium
join:2000-11-02
New York
1 edit | said by digiblur  :I was able to get the Airave from Sprint for free and no monthly service. I get full coverage all over the house now and have the ability to block people from using it but I leave it wide open since I don't live in an apartment. I agree -- the Airave works quite well for me as well.. And, like you, Sprint provided it to me at no charge as well as no monthly service charges. Sprint usually charges $99 for the device and $4.95/mo for just coverage using your included minutes. Without the Airave, I was on a fringe area that showed 0-1 bars on my Blackberry. Since I also have Sprint for my work-supplied Blackberry in addition to my personal one, it benefits that as well. I get 4-5 bars in my home now all the time.
Sprint was very agreeable to providing the device and service to me at no charge. One thing about this that I think is a little ridiculous is that the companies should not be charging monthly fees to simply extend coverage -- you are paying them to a) take load off of their network b) reduce the need for them to invest more heavily in their coverage and c) use YOUR resources to transport your calls to the telephone network. If Sprint hadn't offered it to me at no charge, I probably wouldn't have purchased it. The problem with my area is that all of the major carriers share the same towers - so if I have no coverage with Sprint, I get no coverage with Verizon either.
Just one thing to note -- even though the documentation says you can restrict numbers using the device, it practice this does not happen. Even if you specify that the device is restricted on your account page and provide numbers, it does revert back to wide open. This is because if you are in a densely populated area with low cell coverage, your Airave will deny users from using their phone altogether. They are reportedly still working on a fix for that -- until then, the devices are wide open to anyone else with a non-iDen Sprint phone. |
