gsm GSM booster / repeater

[raff89]

Hi,
Ever since I moved to a house in a rural area I am having issues with my cellphone reception. I was able to manage but since a new house was built between me and my nearest BTS  the situation worsened.

I started to research possible solutions, What would work best for me would be to have external antenna placed outside the house connected to some transponders inside. Unfortunately couldn't find any source I could trust all videos on the topic seem a little bit sketchy to me. I don't know if my issue is so niche that no major brands make solutions for it. Or maybe GSM boosting / repeating is inherently impossible / illegal and all solutions that are available on the market are fake or bordering on illegal.

I've read this linustechtips topic but aside from price bracket and signal strength considerations i does not give me a clear answer on what to look for. I don't want to spend $300+ on something that doesn't work or gets me in trouble.

 

I have two questions:
#1 Did anyone here used or had other experience with this tech.

#2 If yes, what brands should I look for?

 

I'd be grateful for any help.

[JamesTheFolf]

9 hours ago, raff89 said:

Hi,
Ever since I moved to a house in a rural area I am having issues with my cellphone reception. I was able to manage but since a new house was built between me and my nearest BTS  the situation worsened.

I started to research possible solutions, What would work best for me would be to have external antenna placed outside the house connected to some transponders inside. Unfortunately couldn't find any source I could trust all videos on the topic seem a little bit sketchy to me. I don't know if my issue is so niche that no major brands make solutions for it. Or maybe GSM boosting / repeating is inherently impossible / illegal and all solutions that are available on the market are fake or bordering on illegal.

I've read this linustechtips topic but aside from price bracket and signal strength considerations i does not give me a clear answer on what to look for. I don't want to spend $300+ on something that doesn't work or gets me in trouble.

 

I have two questions:
#1 Did anyone here used or had other experience with this tech.

#2 If yes, what brands should I look for?

 

I'd be grateful for any help.

I'm not sure if this will be the case for you and/or your cell phone provider. But while my dad was on AT&T they sent him a cellular service extender because of poor service in our area. Of course this really depends on your cell provider, and even if they do have that you may have to pay for the device.

 

~James

[Donut417]

10 hours ago, raff89 said:

Hi,
Ever since I moved to a house in a rural area I am having issues with my cellphone reception. I was able to manage but since a new house was built between me and my nearest BTS  the situation worsened.

I started to research possible solutions, What would work best for me would be to have external antenna placed outside the house connected to some transponders inside. Unfortunately couldn't find any source I could trust all videos on the topic seem a little bit sketchy to me. I don't know if my issue is so niche that no major brands make solutions for it. Or maybe GSM boosting / repeating is inherently impossible / illegal and all solutions that are available on the market are fake or bordering on illegal.

I've read this linustechtips topic but aside from price bracket and signal strength considerations i does not give me a clear answer on what to look for. I don't want to spend $300+ on something that doesn't work or gets me in trouble.

 

I have two questions:
#1 Did anyone here used or had other experience with this tech.

#2 If yes, what brands should I look for?

 

I'd be grateful for any help.

https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/signal-boosters/consumer-signal-boosters

 

They are LEGAL. There are a few rules, Id advise you read them. 

 

To add on to what @jrhaberland has stated. Providers can provider with a portable cell site thingy that plugs in to your home router. The issue here is, you need to have decent internet to use it Id imagine. 

[JamesTheFolf]

That is a very good point @Donut417. From what I found on AT&T's website it says, "The AT&T MicroCell works with any broadband service, except wireless and satellite broadband, as long as it supports the minimum broadband speeds of 1.5Mbps downstream and 256Kbps upstream. It does not replace your existing broadband service."^[1] Obviously faster internet would be better, but that is the minimum for at least this model.

[raff89]

@jrhaberland and @Donut417 Thanks for suggestions, Unfortunately, my operator does not carry anything similar to a MicroCell. I should also probably specify that I live in Europe, Poland to be exact. As a side note I've read that AT&T's MicroCell is also being discontinued so its a dead end. While I was googling this approach I stumbled on a service called WiFi-calling. it turns out that my provider and my phone both support this. I tried it today and it works. It does not solve the issue completely (like for guests coming over... after the pandemic that is...) so I will keep researching the hardware solution. But its a great stop-gap measure.

Also I was able to find this website: https://www.waveform.com Which seems to be a comprehensive resource on this tech. I am worried though that most of their offers specify certain carriers they work with, I will have to verify if it is due to a frequency band used or if they are somehow locked, like phones used to be.

 

EDIT: I managed to get in touch with proper tech support of my mobile carrier and the definitive answer is "no" for any hardware solution. They pointed me to certain parts of Polish telecommunication law that forbids users from installing and operating GSM hardware. Please note that this might not be true for other parts of the world. Two solutions were presented to me:

1 - nagging my GSM carrier to consider building another BTS with better coverage of my area

2 - relying on WiFi-calling.

You can probably guess that I won't be holding my breath for option #1.