AIRAVE no longer available...

[eriksseven]

I have terrible Sprint service at my house (behind a ridge/hill) and I have as long as I've been here. With my Epic, I usually have between 0 and 1 bars of service. Because of this, my "time without signal" is around 80-85% even with the airplane mode *radio reset*.

However, on roaming (when the phone gets desperate enough) I will see between 3-5 bars, which is a miracle in my mind. Obviously if I could be on roam ALL THE TIME at my house, this would be ideal. After searching for "forced roaming" on this site, and seeing that there were several options apparently available for rooted phones (I am not), I learned about the Airave device, which apparently Sprint had been offering as a solution for people like me.

Doing a Google search I can see articles just a few days old saying that Sprint had been offering these to customers with crappy service.

I called Customer Care and after jumping through the usual hoops--hoping that I would be OFFERED an Airave, I finally just had to come out and ask for it, mentioning that I saw it as a solution.

I was told that the Airave was no longer available and the service rep. came up with a careful answer of; " It may be because they are getting upgraded." This sounded like a deflection, and really a "canned" answer--designed to appear positive, even though he knew that I was getting a negative.

I asked him when or if there would be a solution to my problem (in the form of an Airave like device) and he said that he "knew of nothing... at least this month".

It felt like this guy knew a little more then he was telling and was careful to offer me nothing--no promises. I asked about being put on a list--or having him take note of my issue *hint hint* in case a device were offered soon, but he said that he could do no such thing.

So, any of you with crappy service--BEWARE because Sprint is no longer offering the generous help that THEY WERE by providing Airaves... My gut feeling is that they will no longer be giving away these things and it puts me in a pinch (to the advantage of Sprint) because it takes a "freebie" off the table during the 30-day period. In less then two weeks many of us Epic owners will lose our biggest bargaining chip--which is outright cancellation, my problem just being one of MANY reasons why customers would leave.

 

[DrSuSE]

I helped (guided on what to say) a coworker get one just this past Friday... If the rep was straight with you, then it just happened this weekend.

 

[coolqf]

It has hit the news that Sprint will be providing new Airaves that can do 3Gs very soon. The rep may very well have been telling you the truth.

 

[Aero]

Sprint (and every service company worth anything) has a profitability metric on you individually. this includes your monthly spending, your on time payment history, your likelhood of leaving etc.

a) That number, combined with b) your social engineering skills, c) sprints current policies and d) blind luck in getting a good rep on the phone all aggregate to what you will or will not get.

I was given my airave for free, and also my $5 per month for free. But I am a multiline customer since sprint started and pay my bills and I put my charm on when on the phone and know not to even ask, and simply call back, if I have get a rep who sems like a hard case

My service was and is actually PERFECT in my house with no airave, I just wated one since the wife and I often work from home and we have four lines making the $20/month multiline unlimited airave while home a massive advantage for us -- and enabled us to kill our landlines since we can use 5000 minutes a month from home to landlines without any of it counting.

You indicate you are two weeks into contract. If you are a long time customer I would say you are a cinch for a free airave and credit for the $5 charge and to just try a couple more times. If you are a brand new customer, you are expecting too much.

 

[jonathanlc2005]

not true... but will wait till its in my hands to explain hopefully next week.

but i do know what your talking about and if you want i can message you privately if your interested

 

[cocoleveo7686]

They should help you out. I called them about 2 weeks ago and told them how bad my service was and if there was anything they could do. They send me the Airave for free along with the monthly fee waived.

I went from having 0-1 bars of service to 4-5 all day at my house...i now love it.

 

[dekcufi]

you also have the option of a signal booster to use the mobile as is with out internet....... Just a thought, repeaters work wonders!

 

[eriksseven]

***jonathanlc2005*** Please keep me posted! The guy I talked to encouraged me to "call back whenever", so this will not be the last time I look into this.

But to reiterate, the guy literally told me that "It wasn't something we're doing anymore" which *could* have been his way of not offering me a FREE Airave--but he didn't even specify it as an option to PURCHASE or anything. He said it was not available, period.

I would love to have one though because I lose over 50% of the calls I get at my house... I'm a fairly intuitive/persuasive person and I explained my situation and allowed him to walk me through the "n00b customer" steps, all the carefully dropping all hints and "needs/wishes as a customer" for great service and the desire to be happy on the network. He never made a suggestion or hinted at the Airave service. I had to initiate the discussion after we hit a wall 10 minutes in, like: "So I was doing some reading and came across the mention of a device called the Airave... what is that?"

This did nothing except cause him to say, "yeah--those are basically discontinued and we don't offer them, at least not right now."

Weird, right?

I'm on a 4-line family plan which has been with Sprint for many years. I've only called customer care once, and I managed to get $50 off my next phone (this Epic) which is pretty hard to believe considering they "don't give discounts for the Epic", which is what the Sprint store rep. told me when I was picking up the phone. I'm not saying I'm *entitled* to an Airave, but again, I'd really LOVE to have one and not suffer without a cell signal 86% of the time I'm at my house--which (because I work from home) is like 86% of my day... LOL!

 

[brasshopper]

The name of the 3G device is "Airave Access Point"

I've had an Airave since the first day they were generally available, which is a couple of years ago now. The original Airave could only support 1x data, and three conversations.

Second week of August, my old Airave dies on me. I called Sprint Airave support, and finally convinced them that I had done nothing wrong, and they said they would send me another one, I should have it "in 5 or 6 business days".

A couple of weeks later, I call Sprint back. They give me a tracking number which shows that they had just sent me the airave the day before. It arrives on the first of September, 2010, having been shipped 2 day air on UPS.

I can't get it to work. Sprint says that despite it being on my network, they have no record that it ever contacted them. They do a bunch of useless debugging spread out over a couple of days and finally agree that it is probably DOA and finally agree to send me another airave, however, the old airaves are no longer available, so they will replace my airave with an "Airave Access Point", which is the name of the new device.

The Airave Access Point arrives the next day, they used the cheapest UPS overnight service to get it to me. It tries to initialize for an hour, finally fails, I look up the code (expressed in blinking lights) and see that it says it is not provisioned. I call in with the airave access point's mac address and Sprint says that it was not provisioned yet, they provision it while I am on the phone.

This time, it starts coming up, and downloads a new software load (again, communicated by flashing lights) and then tries to start again.

An hour later it fails, same code, not provisioned, even though it managed to download a new software version. I am so tired of talking to Sprint that I just power reset it one more time.

And this time it comes up. I suspect that it had the new provisioning partially propagated - so that the server that would send it new software knew about it, but the other server did not until it tried again, an hour later.

So you do not want an "Airave", that is the old device, and they are no longer available. You want an "Airave Access Point", that is the new device. The AAP will do the 3G data and it wants 1.5 megabits upload speed for best possible data service. I have 10 megabits down, 1 megabit up, and that works for me. My phone can get 700k download speeds when I run a test on wi-fi and about 250k on the airave.

And I understand that if you are using 1x data you can't get a call. If you are using 3g data you can get a call.

Also, the instructions for the airave tell you to run your entire house through it (it has an in and an out), but people who have done that say that it slows down their connection 25%. I watch movies on the connection, so I don't do it. It gets a plug into my last outbound router, but it does not get to filter all of my household data.

As to whether Sprint will give you one or sell you one, I do not know. I would have no cell service that is reliable from any company without the AAP. I used to use T-Mobile's Hotspot@Home, but I found their service unsatisfactory - occasionally, I get 1-2 bars from AT&T and when the phone thought that the AT&T signal was stronger than the wi-fi signal, it would try to roam and always fail, so the call would drop. Also, the phone would frequently need to be reset - it would just stop talking to the wi-fi router at random times, resulting in missed incoming calls. Hotspot@home was pretty much a joke, and when T-Mobile told me that I was roaming too much and they were dropping me, I thanked them.

By comparison, once the airave connects to the system and you get the green lights, my experience is that everything just works, and it is as reliable as a good connection to a Sprint Tower would be.

 

[sanman]

AIRAVE Alive and Well

I've been using an AIRAVE for several years now. Got it for half price or maybe even $0, and service is comped. Works great, in general. However, I eventually had to use the external antenna to get GPS.

Recently I read that Sprint would have a new AIRAVE. I called up Sprint and requested the new Airvana. They told me they would send me the Airvana and I would need to send back my old AIRAVE. No charge to upgrade, no change to comped service.

Got the new Airvana a few days later. Plugged it in and it came up just fine. If anything, it works better for me than the AIRAVE did. Haven't really put it through its paces, so can't quantify anything. The box itself is quite a bit larger than the AIRAVE. Otherwise, not much different.

One thing: I had to call support because my calls weren't routing through the Airvana. It's been so long I forgot I had to dial *99 to register my phone for Airvana access. Once I did that I was good to go.

 

[eriksseven]

Interesting... I'll call them back this week and see if I can find out more! Thanks guys--and I'll update.

 

[jonathanlc2005]

***jonathanlc2005*** Please keep me posted! The guy I talked to encouraged me to "call back whenever", so this will not be the last time I look into this.

im sorry it took so long, the original time didnt get the order through but called back and got it through.

basically, they are out of stock... truly are. the only method is to go through the store and pay 99 bucks.

i explained to them that i paid for the the original one and pay for the monthly fee which prompted to try again and my i reach out and say THEY REALLY ARE TRYING TO WORK HARD FOR THE CUSTOMER, atleast for me from what i experienced the couple times i called who is trying all means and if you feel otherwise, ask for a supervisor AND BE FAIR WITH THEM AND UNDERSTANDING. i actually apologized for being irrational when i didnt realize how much they were trying.

simply i stated to them that my area is a forgotten zone, and its confirmed via sprint impact and 3g sensorly website. that i have an airrave my me and my family are struggling with this airrave that it cuts in and out alot and truly do depend on this airrave because the area i live in is forgotten in 3g and 4g and is in an affiliate market. they told me they cant issue me one because its out of warranty and if i feel its not working right then send it to the manufacturer via return kit. after which, i said to them i cant simply allow that to be the end result because in the end we have 4 PDA's in the account and pay nearly 300 a month in bills, and myself working 5 years in sprint corporate i can only be treated as a regular customer now and dont wish to figure out other means to get my signal in my home.

key words:
300 dollar bill, finding other means of signals, 4 PDA's, poor performance airrave, use data.

so the customer service rep transfered me without demanding for him to do so to account specialist from which understood predictament and asked how i got the airrave and told him i bought it in 07-08 full price and pay monthly for it. i dont ask for handouts or discounts, i just simply want to be fair and get signal in my home. in which he got the specialist to get me one, however after waiting a week... i hear nothing from my family which hasnt recieve anything. so i called account specialist which said they didnt have any to give customers but the account specialist wasnt sounding right to me in some of the words she said so i asked for a manager, took care of me (kinda dont want to give details to protect him and his job) and finished it up great for me

in the end, DONT DEMAND ANYTHING... just give facts and be fair. if they dont have anything, then be understanding and ask for other means. remember there are 52 million customers besides you and some of them are too demanding they believe they are higher then the CEO or obama, so do what you can and if you feel they arent giving a understanding to what you want then ask for a manager to clarify things and trust me they will for both sides.

any other advice, ask...

about the device, its scheduled for delivery tuesday
jonathan

 

[snarf77]

you also have the option of a signal booster to use the mobile as is with out internet....... Just a thought, repeaters work wonders!

where can i acquire one

 

[jamex]

The airave hardly works. I got one recently and it has been down more than up. I currently can't get it to work at all. Just look at the sprint community page.

 

[eriksseven]

im sorry it took so long, the original time didnt get the order through but called back and got it through.

...

Thanks for the reply! I've been mulling over my next conversation with Sprint regarding this and decided to wait a couple of weeks--just with the 30-period ending and all of the associated bargaining chip nonsense. I figured that they would be more guarded during this period anyways, and probably receiving a lot of demands from others. Regardless, now that I know this I'll try again soon and update this thread! I literally have one spot in my house where I can hold a consistent conversation (with 0-1 bars), everywhere else is a disaster. So I WILL be calling back, LOL.

 

[gmazz]

please let me know what you said. I called many times in the last few weeks and no airave. I am new to sprint by 3 weeks if that helps.