Restricting Airave Access for EV-DO

**Doctor O** · 03-02-2012, 07:35 PM

I just received the 3G Airave, and after configuring it to only allow access from both mine and my wife's phones, I found that it only applies the restriction to voice. Any Sprint device in range can connect and use the EV-DO signal.

I called Sprint at the direct Airave number, and after the rep tried to tell me that 'the Airave doesn't support 3G data,' he put me on hold and came back to say that '3G data access can't be restricted; only voice and text messaging can be restricted.'

Clearly this isn't exactly reputable information (since it took me a few minutes to even make him understand what the Airave does, and that I have the newer 3G model), but I'm curious if anyone else has run into this issue?

Multiple tests of mine have shown that, even if a device is not on the whitelist, it can still make an EV-DO connection and use data at full speed. If I add the mobile device to the whitelist and reboot the Airave, it can access voice and SMS services again.

**my8950** · 03-19-2012, 08:29 PM

I don't think it really helps at all with data, only voice. I may be wrong, but I've had one and it doesn't seem to do jack for Sprints elephant like data speeds.

**larryt510** · 03-20-2012, 02:04 AM

The Airave (Samsung) does not support data. The Airvana does support data.

**JohnJoe** · 03-20-2012, 02:32 AM

The Samsung Airave does support data, but only the 1g, not the 3g.

**larryt510** · 03-20-2012, 09:59 AM

I didn't know there were two different ones. First I have heard of that.

**pa28pilot** · 04-01-2012, 03:44 PM

Interesting. When you say "it applies the restriction to voice", did you happen to test it with a phone not on the list?
I ask because when I got mine last Summer/Fall, the restriction didn't work at all. After escalating through several tiers of Airave support and sales folks (the Sales folks got me more comprehensive information than the support folks did), I was told in no uncertain terms that the restriction feature had been disabled, even though the sprint.com site still allowed users to enter information into there.

Traffic on another phone forum oriented specifically to Sprint indicated that the problem was that non-Airave users who happened to be in range of one were having their phones vote into the femtocell and were being told they couldn't make phone calls. You can imagine how that probably went over at corporate.

At the time, I tested mine with a combination of handsets and found that whether they were on the list or not, they were able to make phone calls. I'd love to know if that has actually changed recently.

Thanks.