Airave Question

[Cree8r]

I did a quick search but did not find an answer to my question, is why i started this thread. Mods if its been asked before and you need to move this, sorry.

I am in New Jersey on the AT&T network, until June 4th then i move over to Sprint. Here in Jersey, sprint works fine but, my dilemma is im moving to upstate New York in about a month. It's going to be roaming only, but a few phone calls and these boards have introduced me to Airave.

The guy at RS was nice enough to give me one for free plus a small fee every month. Has any one of you used an Airave? If so can you give me some plus's and minus's on it? the usual questions, is it reliable? Signal strength? etc.etc.

Thank You

 

[twennywonn]

I did a quick search but did not find an answer to my question, is why i started this thread. Mods if its been asked before and you need to move this, sorry.

I am in New Jersey on the AT&T network, until June 4th then i move over to Sprint. Here in Jersey, sprint works fine but, my dilemma is im moving to upstate New York in about a month. It's going to be roaming only, but a few phone calls and these boards have introduced me to Airave.

The guy at RS was nice enough to give me one for free plus a small fee every month. Has any one of you used an Airave? If so can you give me some plus's and minus's on it? the usual questions, is it reliable? Signal strength? etc.etc.

Thank You

The airrave is awesome and works flawlessly but has some minor cons

1. 5 bucks a month ( I easily talked my way out of this Just be polite with the reps.)

2. you need decent internet run this test to figure out how good your internet is, VoIP (Voice over IP) testing by Visualware

-My airrave works flawlessly and my mos score was 4.1

3. The data speed when using evdo is only 1x! But I use my wifi at home anyway.

4. Rare issue but if someone has a virgin mobile phone in range on your airrave it will make their phone useless, trust me I live in an apartment building

 

[clafountaine]

I have an Airave as well...works great! And Sprint comps my monthly charge as well. I guess they are releasing a new one soon that does Data too (EVDO.)

Would be a nice addition!

 

[frank828#AC]

i noticed that my friend that recently got her airave got a new model. i have the first gen. do the new ones provide EVDO?

 

[cl191]

i noticed that my friend that recently got her airave got a new model. i have the first gen. do the new ones provide EVDO?

As far as I know the new model is still 1x only.

BTW, you can log onto your account from sprint's website and lock the airave to your phone # only if you want. Other phones won't be able to use it after you've done that.

 

[bronx889]

I have had an Airave for about 9 months. I live in a condo so Sprint locked my Airave to my wife's phone number and mine. I didn't want neighbors piggybacking. My version of the Airave can only handle 3 simultaneous cell calls at a time.

Also make sure you have high quality DSL. I used to have Verizon DSL at 3Mbs down and 768k up and I would get some drop out. I upgraded my DSL to 7Mbs down and work better.

My only issue is that if I originate a call away from my home and come home, the call starts to drop out. Sprint says call originated on the Airave can transfer to a normal cell tower but not visa versa. So I usually have call the person back. Anyone else have this problem?

Hope it works out for you.

 

[clafountaine]

Here is one site talking about the NEW Airave which supports EVDO and VOIP, though no solid details on the VOIP yet.

Sprint Airave v2 with VoIP & EVDO clears FCC - SlashGear

 

[dwhitman]

i noticed that my friend that recently got her airave got a new model. i have the first gen. do the new ones provide EVDO?

My Airave only does 1xRTT, but I've read that newer models do support EVDO.

That said, to run the Airave, you need to have a broadband internet connection anyway. You'd get better performance using WiFi to the router that you're connecting the Airave to.

 

[Cree8r]

I am going to be using Verizon fios (go figure) which i have been using down here which is pretty fast. So i'm not anticipating any trouble with speed.

Couple of my friends have tried to talk me out of going through all this trouble (not happening). I AM GETTING THIS PHONE.

Now if one/all of you can tell me how to give thanks here i would like to do that because, you all have been very helpful!!

 

[DesertSilver#AC]

My "con" with the Airave is that there is a noticeable delay in voice being relayed back and forth. I estimate it to be a 0.75 - 1 second delay, which doesn't sound like much but is noticeable when in a conversation; causes a lot of talking over each other. It's similar to when you see the news talking to someone off site and there is the delay.

Nobody else on this thread mentioned this, so am I the only one?

 

[organix]

I got my AIRAVE for free and the monthly charges were also comp'd. I used to have bad reception at home and now I get full bars with EVDO. I'm guessing that means that mine supports EVDO, but I could test that if someone knows how I could do so.

 

[twennywonn]

As far as I know the new model is still 1x only.

BTW, you can log onto your account from sprint's website and lock the airave to your phone # only if you want. Other phones won't be able to use it after you've done that.

You can add a virgin mobile phone but they will not connect because they are prepaid. So when they make a call it say you in range of an airrave please move outside airrave coverage.

 

[dwhitman]

My "con" with the Airave is that there is a noticeable delay in voice being relayed back and forth. I estimate it to be a 0.75 - 1 second delay, which doesn't sound like much but is noticeable when in a conversation; causes a lot of talking over each other. It's similar to when you see the news talking to someone off site and there is the delay.

Nobody else on this thread mentioned this, so am I the only one?

I don't notice anything like that on mine. I suspect it's related to your internet connection. Either low bandwidth, or high latency, either could cause the behavior you describe.

 

[twennywonn]

My "con" with the Airave is that there is a noticeable delay in voice being relayed back and forth. I estimate it to be a 0.75 - 1 second delay, which doesn't sound like much but is noticeable when in a conversation; causes a lot of talking over each other. It's similar to when you see the news talking to someone off site and there is the delay.

Nobody else on this thread mentioned this, so am I the only one?

yeah i don't have that problem and i got my airrave on launch date. My guess is you internet's latency is high.

 

[PurpleGuitar]

I've had an Airrave for about six months, and I've been very pleased with it. I live in a poor reception area for Sprint, plus my house has lots of lead paint, so I used to get no service in my house. After installing the Airrave, I now get 5 bars everywhere in my house. Call quality is perfect, data speed is OK (1x).

The only con for me is that the Airrave takes a l-o-n-g time to boot up. It usually takes about an hour from power-on until it's able to take calls. It's not a big deal for me since I keep it on all the time, but it's worth noting.

 

[sYnOnYx]

I've had an Airrave for about a year.

I've had no problems when starting a call in the house and then leaving, I just hear a 'beep' letting me know it transferred to sprints network.

Its worked pretty good for me, only thing Ive noticed is Google maps shows me in California if I try to use it in the house.

I recommend it, but yeah who needs an EVDO Airrave if you have wifi ?

 

[ctp5150]

We have had the airave for like 2 years and we hate the fact that we lose calls whenever we come home on a call. I got the airave free and monthly charge reversed since they cant provide coverage even though I'm in Metro Milwaukee area

I have had an Airave for about 9 months. I live in a condo so Sprint locked my Airave to my wife's phone number and mine. I didn't want neighbors piggybacking. My version of the Airave can only handle 3 simultaneous cell calls at a time.

Also make sure you have high quality DSL. I used to have Verizon DSL at 3Mbs down and 768k up and I would get some drop out. I upgraded my DSL to 7Mbs down and work better.

My only issue is that if I originate a call away from my home and come home, the call starts to drop out. Sprint says call originated on the Airave can transfer to a normal cell tower but not visa versa. So I usually have call the person back. Anyone else have this problem?

Hope it works out for you.

 

[npark]

I think all Airaves are limited to 3 simultaneous calls.

FYI, call quality is more latency than it is bandwidth. You guys are quoting like 3mbps down/768up, etc... This doesn't really impact call quality as much as latency.

What is latency? Imagine a 7 lane highway, but cars speed up to 30 mph then stop. Then speed up, then stop. Now imagine a 1 lane lonely mountain road. 45 mph, but you never stop. The 7 lane highway will move more trucks, cars, and stuff each hour. But the mountain road will give a smoother ride. The smoother ride is what gives VoIP call quality, NOT moving trucks around and mass tonnage around. If you wanted to move a lot of cargo around, you take a bunch of trucks and take the highway and deal with the stop and go.

Anywho, poor analogy, but still. Latency is a more important factor for gaming, VoIP, and all streaming types of apps. A big reason for this is syncing or sequencing the packets.. with poor latency, packets arrive out-of-sync and then on that end it has to figure out which packets are out-of-sync and which ones are.

Essentially, each call requires 50kbps bandwidth. 3 simultaneous calls means 150kbps max bandwidth is needed for the Airave EVER. You will never need more than 150k (forget megabits, we're talking kilobits). If your connection has at least 150kbps up and down, as well as like 20-40 ms (ish) latency then you've got enough of a connection to support the Airave.

 

[Edge767]

I have an Airave. I got it for free without a monthly fee due to my six-line family moving to an area with no reliable Sprint service. When they asked for our new address, they didn't even try to get me to buy one; they offered it right away for free.

We love it and have it limited to our six lines. It works great and phone calls are crystal-clear. It's nice having 5 bars all the time in the house.