• AT&T to begin 3G MicroCell rollout in mid-April, MicroCell unit to cost $150

    Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

    Greg Kumparak is the Mobile Editor at Techcrunch. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born just outside of San Jose, and now lives in the East Bay of California. → Learn More

    The news out of CTIA just won’t stop. AT&T has just announced their roll out plans for their cell-tower-in-a-box, signal-boostin’ 3G MicroCell service, which they’ve had in testing since September.

    Not sure what the MicroCell is? Don’t sweat it – it’s a bit of a weird concept. If you’re in an area where signal is spotty, you can pick up one of these boxes, connect it to your home broadband, and it’ll act as a miniature, low power cell tower. Your signal goes up, and the stress on AT&T’s towers goes down.

    Here’s what we know so far:

    • They’ll be moving from their limited testing phase to a national roll out beginning in April, with the service lighting up in unnamed cities around the US “in the coming months”
    • The MicroCell unit will come at a one time cost of $149.99
    • The unit can be self installed; AT&T is offering tech support, but they’re not insisting that their guys plug it in for you
    • There’s no monthly fee if you don’t mind that connecting through the MicroCell still uses your AT&T minutes. If you do mind, you can tack on an unlimited MicroCell calling plan for 20 bucks a month. On the upside, it looks like selecting that plan at purchase will score you a $100 mail-in rebate, dropping the long-term price of the unit to $50.
    • MicroCell owners can support up to 10 different lines, with 4 of those lines talking simultaneously.

    So what do you think, dear readers? Are these prices fair? Are you ready to put a little tiny cell tower in your house?

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