So I have finally moved to North Carolina, and found I have little to no Sprint coverage in my house. It's one of those things where you have to stand in one place to make a call or prevent a call from getting dropped. I talked to Sprint last night, and after 4 dropped calls with them, they determined I am eligible to get an Airave. They are sending one out to me - it should be here by Thursday at the latest. Has anyone here ever used one and did it solve your connection problems? 

Thanks,

 As long as your broadband is good it should give you a top notch signal at home. Won't help once you stroll off down the street though.

Hi Kathleen - so do Sprint supply this free of charge? Seems like a good solution.

Thanks, Dave. I have Time Warner Cable Internet and the speed is pretty good. Sprint says I don't need TW's approval or permission to plug the Airwave into my router.

I have great coverage walking down the street, walking down the aisle at the grocery store 2.5 miles down the street, and at my parents house 5 miles away. It's just in my own home that the coverage is poor.

Laura Rooke:

Hi Kathleen - so do Sprint supply this free of charge? Seems like a good solution.

Hi Laura:

They are "giving" it to me for free, and also waiving the $4.95 monthly fee for two years. However, if I leave Sprint, I have to call them for a 'return box' to send it back, otherwise I'll have to pay the $100 charge for it. I've been with Sprint for a long time, and the guy in the Consumer Solutions/Reactive Retention department bent over backwards to keep me. They even waived their requirement that I extend my contract by two years - if they had forced that on me I would have left immediately.

Kathleen Anderson:

They are "giving" it to me for free, and also waiving the $4.95 monthly fee for two years. However, if I leave Sprint, I have to call them for a 'return box' to send it back, otherwise I'll have to pay the $100 charge for it. I've been with Sprint for a long time, and the guy in the Consumer Solutions/Reactive Retention department bent over backwards to keep me. They even waived their requirement that I extend my contract by two years - if they had forced that on me I would have left immediately

That's great - it's good that companies feel the need to look after their loyal customers.

Please let us know how well this solution works for you.

Interesting product, Kathleen. I'm only familiar with T-Mo's Hotspot @ Home, which is basically Wi-Fi calling (I think), but the Airave apparently creates a full-fledged CDMA "bubble" in a 5,000-square-foot area. Everything I've read about it says the performance is really great - sounds like you're going to be very pleased, especially with the costs waived!

The only caveat I encountered was that when the Airave arrives, it's set up to allow ANY Sprint phone within range to log on and make calls - the phone user doesn't have to take any action: it's as if you've just walked into a regular coverage area. You have to talk to Sprint customer service if you want to restrict use to only the phones that you own or approve. Probably won't be a big dea, but if you're concerned about a lot of foot traffic or a public area near your house, you might consider asking Sprint about this. Apparently, each connected phone will use some of your broadband capacity, so in theory this could be a problem.

Also, while not a big concern, apparently the Airave requires a GPS lock in order to work - there's an internal receiver that needs to lock onto GPS satellites so Sprint will know you're using the device in an approved area (for example, in the US, instead of overseas). You should be able to get a clear view of the sky with the Airave, but if you're deep in an urban area or under lots of tall trees, you might have to fiddle with positioning the device to get the GPS to lock on.