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So as we all know Sprint offers the Airave devices to help in-home coverage issues. It requires a high-speed Internet connection and creates a miniature cell site inside your home (femtocell). Sprint has offered these for free or deeply discounted for quite a while to customers with little to no coverage in their home. The requirements for determining eligibility have changed according to what I've heard. There hasn't been an official communication to retail employees as we don't deal with Airaves directly, so do take it with a grain of salt, and remember it can change again at any time. This information comes from a conversation with a member on the Airave team that determines customer eligibility to assist our store in providing accurate information to our customers that we refer to their team for coverage issues. To be eligible for a FREE Airave, the account must have 4+ active lines. Otherwise, the account is eligible for purchasing the Airave at full retail price ($280), or with a 2-year contract commitment for a discounted price ($130). My assumption is that since Network Vision is ramping up to full speed and should be completed within the next year or so, the increase in coverage availability from the 800MHz deployment and enhanced capability of the new equipment in general is anticipated to remove the need for Airave devices for most customers.

So, after having my Gs3 for a couple months, and the wife has had her Gs3 since September as well, we're both seeing a few "quirks" with the GS3 working properly with the Airvana femtocell. I finally broke down and called Sprint today, and after a 41 minute conversation with tech, they are going to send out the Airave 2.5 (the newest one that came out in ??June?? or so). I just got this one last year around Feb 2011, when they introduced the 3G version...so maybe this will fix the problems I've been seeing lately (like the same text message being received like 10 times, or someone receiving the same text msg like 10 times...but you only hit send once). The last straw was when I tried to make a call today, got the 3 beeps, and the person answered the phone but it sounded like a cell phone from 1998 in a bad roaming area. I could barely hear "he___ wh__ --- hu ---- th---- he---- bl---- " and I just hung up. Got mad and unplugged the thing, made same phone call again and (while roaming) I heard him fine. It wouldn't bother me much if the calls were just "hey how are ya" type things, but I run an at-home computer repair business, and this happened to be a business owner that I do thousands per year in computer work for....I need to hear what he's saying. Anyone seen, or had any experience with the new Airave? halcyoncmdr have you heard anything about them?? Hope they don't have the issues this one has seen. (the tech even pushed an update to it, but still decided to send one out anyway)...