Sprint's Airave signal booster in the wild, on sale nationwide this month?

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 1st 2008 at 8:56AM

Considering that the last time Sprint's Airave was even relevant was when a smattering of folks bought one in Denver and Indianapolis, like, last September, here's a quick refresher on what this thing does. Similar to T-Mobile @home, this box plugs into one's broadband connection and essentially acts as a mini cell tower within your house, which will certainly make folks in a fringe zone with no option for Roam Only (feel our pain, Instinct owners?) quite happy. For whatever reason, the carrier has dilly-dallied around with this thing forever, and even if whispers prove true and it launches on July 15th for $99 (on top of a monthly fee for unlimited minutes, we hear), we have to wonder if anyone will even bite. Two more shots in the read link.

Filed under: Peripherals, Samsung, Sprint, EV-DO, CDMA

Tags: Airave, femtocell, in the wild, InTheWild, signal booster, SignalBooster, Sprint, ubicell

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Jason D. Clinton @ Jul 1st 2008 11:09AM

All the information on pricing out there in the past day is bunk. From Sprint's own website, an Airave base station with let *ANYONE* with a Sprint phone get on the base station. If you want unlimited calling, however, you must have the unlimited Airave plan which is $15 OR a Simply Everything plan.

If you don't believe me, read it here:
http://sprintenterprise.com/airave/faq.html

(Oh and notice that a ongoing call will not hop from Sprint's towers to a base station and vise-versa. So no one driving by your house is going to accidentally end up on your bandwidth.)

Neutral

frank @ Jul 1st 2008 11:46AM

It's looking like no one really has a good femtocell solution yet. If it can't do a handoff, it's clearly not acting like a mini cell tower. I've been using T-Mobile's Hotspot @ Home for over a year now and the big drawback to theirs is that you have to have one of a precious few UMA-enabled devices.

Neutral

Bob @ Jul 1st 2008 1:11PM

You can continue your call when leaving home.
"Yes. Calls originating inside the AIRAVE coverage area transfer to the Sprint Nationwide Network once you leave the AIRAVE coverage area.
Note: you will be billed at your regular wireless plan rate for the portion of the call that has been transferred to the Sprint Nationwide Network."

Neutral

wezgray @ Jul 1st 2008 7:17PM

I have been holding my breathe for one of these since I redid our Sprint contract as we have very little signal at home (stand in a window type of coverage) and only a Magicjack as a house phone. Since I have been holding my breathe so long I passed out woke up and then passed out again... maybe the next time I come to, this thing will be available.. PLEASE?

Neutral

Jamar @ Jul 2nd 2008 10:02AM

The only niec thing I see in this device is being able to cut down on international roaming (or for use in places without CDMA).

Neutral

NeoteriX @ Jul 3rd 2008 12:03AM

No, you cannot use the AirRave internationally -- there is a GPS locator in the device which will only allow you to use the unit where Sprint is licensed. In other words, no cheating and going internationally.

Neutral

Brad @ Jul 2nd 2008 5:30PM

So will a VPN and a decent connection overseas mean I can take my sprint cell and use it in a foreign country?

I wonder if hotels will start to offer "use your Sprint phone like it's local" service through these things in international locations. You can bet there'd be value in that. And at $100, it might even be worth it to go without a partnership.

Neutral

Roger Alford @ Jul 3rd 2008 3:41AM

No one has mentioned that during the BETA test and even as early as October 2007 this Airave went for only $49 at Sprint. Now its $50 MORE?

I dont think Ill be getting one, even with the fluctuation signal bar on the Instinct that I have, Ive never lost coverage ONCE!

Neutral

Tdburn @ Jul 19th 2008 6:27PM

I recently signed up on Sprint because of their better pricing plans but their signal is crap in my city. I'm very much hoping to get the Airave because I drop calls like nobodies business in my house. Fortunately I have unlimited roaming on my plan, as long as my roaming minutes don't exceed the minutes used on the Sprint network. What I'm really wondering about is the pricing of the Airave. A sprint rep on the airave line said there will be some promotional pricing when it gets released. What I haven't confirmed is whether or not you can buy the Airave just for a better signal and avoid paying for the 'unlimited' voice feature that is available for $15.00. Because on the Airave site it only mentions the unlimited minutes feature and nothing else.

Neutral