Vodafone Access Gateway (Femtocell)

Ok, so not Virtualisation related at all but I thought there might be others out there interested so here goes my experiences with the Vodafone Access Gateway http://www.vodafone.co.uk/gateway.

Having recently moved I’ve gone from having a full Vodafone signal at home to being able to only pick up a single bar in the bathroom at the new house.  A far from idea situation.  I’ve been using Vodafone for years and have been totally happy with their service so didn’t want to swap to another provider.  I learnt from http://www.ewan.net/ that Vodafone were soon bringing out an ‘Access Gateway’ which is effectivley your own base station in your house.  So here are my experiences of obtaining and using one.

I normally deal directly with Vodafone over the phone so my first step was to call them and get one ordered.  Here was the first stumbling block.  Once I got through to someone who knew what I was talking about it transpired that I can’t order one over the phone, I have to go into a shop.

The next day I pop into the Liverpool Street Vodafone store on my way home to pick one up.  Here again I’m faced with sales guys who don’t know what I’m talking about!  A quick chat to the manager and he produces a cheat sheet for the sales guy detailing the Access Gateway.  No sales speech needed, I know what I want, just sell it to me :)  I’m given 4 options for buying the device:

• Outright for £160
• £10 a month for 12 months
• £7.50 a month for 18 months
• £5 a month for 24 months

Obviously it’s cheaper to buy it on a monthly plan so I opt for that.  Then they decide to tell me that they don’t actually stock it and it has to be ordered in.  Worse than that they have to have it delievered to the shop and can’t send it to me directly.  This was at 17:30 on a Friday and I’m told it’ll be in on Tuesday and they’ll give me a ring.  All in all I spent about 30 minutes in the shop for what should have been a simple sale.

Tuesday comes and goes with no phone call.  Wednesday I decide to give them a call execpt you can’t call the shops directly so I have to pop in on my way home.  Thankfully it has arrived but they don’t know why no one called me to tell me.  Now we get to the fun part of payment.   I’m told that they don’t know how to put it on the monthly contract, only for a one off fee.  Que numerous phone calls to their head office to sort it out.  Eventually after another 30 mins of hanging around they sort it out on the contract and I’m out of the store with my new toy

Sitting on the train on the way home the instructions seem all too easy.  Plug it in, register it on the web site, wait for a txt and email saying it’s working within 24 hours.

Arriving home I plug it in and register it on the web site.  The instructions tell me that the top lights will flash for an hour whilst it establishes a connection.  Once that’s done I will have a txt and email within 24 hours and it’ll all be working.

24 hours passes and still the lights flash.  I put in a call to their helpline.  A dedicated line for the Access Gateway so these guys should know all about it.  20 minutes on hold and I’m told that the systems are down and they have a big backlog.  Don’t worry about the flashing lights they’ll flash until Vodafone have manually set it up.  The instructions are wrong.  I’m told it should be done by 8pm.

Another day passes but I do get an apologetic email from Vodafone saying they are having issues.  Then 3 days after plugging it in I get the txt and email I’ve been waiting for, it’s working!

Arriving home from work I reset my phone and am presented with a full signal.  I wander around the house and out into the garden, still full signal :)  Calls work, txt works, 3G internet works.  The Access Gateway does exactly as it says on the tin.  The only outstanding issue I have is how do you add more phones to it in the future?  As part of the registration process you have to enter all of the phone numbers that will be using the device.  Once that’s done there doesn’t seem to be a way of changing it.

Overall the Vodafone Access Gateway does exactly what it’s supposed to do and works very well.  It would appear that Vodafone could have done a better job on training their staff on the product but the product itself appears to be rock solid.