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Boosting signal in a house?

nobius

By nobius
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nobius Member Level: eHRPD

nobius

Posted
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My parents' home is a death trap for cell phone signals. Outside for all carriers works great. Sprint and Verizon are very poor, alternating between 3G and nothing. T-Mobile works fine. Is there anything that can improve CDMA signals in a building?

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WiWavelength Member Level: LTE Advanced

WiWavelength

Posted
Posted

Go to a window and do this:

 

businesswoman_holding_her_cell_phone_out_car_bld019017.jpg

 

AJ

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Steven800 Member Level: 3G EVDO

Steven800

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There are other devices I believe that don't require broadband you just got to do a little bit of searching on google. I know that they have Wilson signal boosters for while in a car. Not sure about a house one but then I don't see why they wouldn't have one.

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coloradosprings Member Level: Digital

coloradosprings

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I have an Airave in my room. I called sprint and I got it for free with no monthly fees too, Its great and cover about 500 sq feet. all you need is "internet connection" and must be Ethernet from your router to Airave.

Edited by coloradosprings
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digiblur Member Level: LTE Advanced

digiblur

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I have an Airave in my room. I called sprint and I got it for free with no monthly fees too, Its great and cover about 500 sq feet. all you need is "internet connection" and must be Ethernet from your router to Airave.

 

It also works just fine behind your router. I prefer to do my own network management and don't need a double NAT.

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boomerbubba Member Level: eHRPD

boomerbubba

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There are other devices I believe that don't require broadband you just got to do a little bit of searching on google. I know that they have Wilson signal boosters for while in a car. Not sure about a house one but then I don't see why they wouldn't have one.

 

See also these other threads on that subject:

 

Signal Amplification - I want to install a booster at my house

 

Do cell boosters work?

 

Cell repeaters and LTE

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pii100 Member Level: 3G EVDO

pii100

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Bi-Directional Amplifier.

 

Sure, they tend to run $500+...

My Wilson setup ran me just under 600 for everything and works great. I posted install photos and a parts list in one of the threads Boomer linked. I was in the same situation, good signal on my roof but almost none inside.
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pii100 Member Level: 3G EVDO

pii100

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The tower is about a mile away. I am just below the rise of a hill in between us so I get poor coverage. A few feet up on my roof its not a problem. In fact on my roof I can get a RSSI of -76dBm on my phone.

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pii100 Member Level: 3G EVDO

pii100

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Like Boomer said above this wont help me with LTE once it is deployed on my tower but I have a nice WiFi system at home and great internet at 6Mb down so I like doing the responsible thing and offload to WiFi when I am at home.

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digiblur Member Level: LTE Advanced

digiblur

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The tower is about a mile away. I am just below the rise of a hill in between us so I get poor coverage. A few feet up on my roof its not a problem. In fact on my roof I can get a RSSI of -76dBm on my phone.

 

Yeah, your scenario would work great. I had one of those ZBoost things before they came out with the Airave in 2008. I even had the outdoor directional panel antenna 30 foot in the air on my OTA mast. It worked ok, but only in that one room. I did get a little more boost out of it after mounting the panel antenna on the focal point of a 20 inch parabolic pointed at the tower. Did pretty well then. I get around -101 in the house and -95 outside. I'm sure it's worse now with the e-glass windows I have now.

 

At typical booster scenario really isn't about boosting the signal but just "moving" the signal inside and make it equal to outside.

 

Might have to break out the booster again and play around as I have a 90cm dish I can toy with to see what kind of gain I can get.

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pii100 Member Level: 3G EVDO

pii100

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Digi you may want to concentrate you efforts on the indoor antenna if you got good signal in the same room it was in. Too much gain on the antenna facing the tower will kick in the receiver overload protection in the amp.

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