Could AT&T's MicroCell be draining battery life from handsets?

AT&T's MicroCell is a femtocell device used by those who have poor cellular reception. The device takes the cellular signal to and from a phone and transmits it over the users internet signal. Unfortunately, some owners of handsets are finding that the MicroCell is also draining the batteries in their phone.

For example, one Samsung Focus S owner said that his battery was losing 15%-20% of its strength every hour while the Microcell was plugged in and in use. When the MicroCell was unplugged, battery drain on the Windows Phone model was a more respectable 1% over two hours. Over at AT&T's user forum, there are many complaints about the issue with one user having problems with the Samsung Captivate which is an Android phone. Another Captivate owner had his phone and MicroCell replaced by AT&T, and that did not fix the problem.

Another complaint comes from an Apple iPhone 4S user on iOS 5.0.1. The handset suffered an overnight battery drain of 3%-4% with the MicroCell plugged out. With it plugged in, the drain was 55%. The same user found that the phone's signal without the MicroCell plugged in is -101 versus -49 with it plugged in which proves that it is not a matter of the phone working harder with the MicroCell plugged in.

So far, there is no comment from AT&T. We'd love to have some comments from our readers, though. If you have an AT&T branded handset and have suffered an unusually large battery drain while using a MicroCell, drop us a comment in the box below!

source: AT&T via WPCentral