I have a co-worker in a rural area that currently has no signal cell phone at his house. To get signal he needs to go down his gravel driveway toward the road in order to get 1 bar.
He’s not really tech savvy, and this is also an area I have no practical knowledge in. Is there are cellular signal booster that could realistically turn no-bars into something workable?
In the UK they used a small base station that connected to your own internet to send the signal to the carrier. That’s one solution. Another would be switching to a carrier and phone that offers wifi calling
Do they have internet, att sells something you plug into your route for what is basically a hotspot but for 4G
You’re looking for a pico-cell or a femto-cell, but they’ve become more and more rare as Wifi Calling has become ubiquitous.
The problem with this solution in rural areas is that it requires an internet connection with better latency than old-school satellite. If you have that, you can just use Wifi Calling. If you don’t have that, no boosters will help you.
Is there a device that can relay, amplify and repeat cellphone signals?
There are devices which can receive a cellular signal and rebroadcast it. Usually having an antenna on the roof will get you a signal as the signal improves with height.
The problem with these devices is that they are usually illegal unless they’re sold by your provider as you’re broadcasting on the spectrum owned by your provider and other than just a licensing issue it can mess up the cellular signal for other nearby.
My dad used to sell these things and ending up getting in trouble but they are out there.
One solution is these I used them at work for guys that live in the sticks, and they get the job done well. If they’re in a valley then we’d recommend putting them on a tower or something to get the unit at least above grade.
Given the literally zero bars this would be a gamble for the price…
The way to start is by seeing if there’s any contrived way you can get a stable cell signal at the location. As in, climb the highest tree, put a cell phone (or hotspot) on a 20ft+ pole and raise it up/walk around with it, and see if you can find a spot with a good signal.
If so, you’ve got a chance. Let us know to what lengths you had to go, then we can start talking about antennas, repeaters, etc.
If not, determine if there’s something like a tree in the direction of the cell tower blocking the weak signal, and whether you would be able to remove it.
Bump. I am in the same boat. I can make calls they drop often and I have 0 data. Not even 3g.
This topic was automatically closed 273 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.