cell phone booster

[upthesaukee]

Before they put the new Verizon tower on the east side of Alton Bay, above the Echo Point area, our cell coverage at our house was poor.
I borrowed a friend's Verizon range extender. The paperwork says coverage is about 5,000 sq ft. That sounded like the answer to our prayers. Until I started using it.
That 5,000 sq ft sounded like a lot until I realized we are talking about a circle that is centered on the extender's antenna. What that works out to is a 40 ft radius. I was losing coverage over by our garage or out near the street. For us, it wasn't worth buying our own.
Fortunately, the new antenna had made it a moot point.

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[rsnews]

So I would plug the extender into my Metrocast router? Even my metriocast stinks too. How much is this thing? A couple hundred I assume.

[upthesaukee]

Originally Posted by rsnews

So I would plug the extender into my Metrocast router? Even my metriocast stinks too. How much is this thing? A couple hundred I assume.

I believe it was either $225 or $250 when I was looking at it. Yes, plug it into the router. Good news is even with"stinky" Metrocast, it does work (don't think it uses much bandwidth). ☺

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[Rich]

I have one of the first generation 1x extenders. It helped me a lot at home. Since then, they have 3G and now 4G extenders.

But recently I turned on WiFi calling on my phones.

WiFi calling seems to work ok, but often it seems to take a moment or two to fully connect a call. We often spend a few seconds saying "hello, hello" before the other party can hear us. I'm not sure why yet. I'm begining to think it may be the combination of the 1x network extender and WiFi calling. I'm not sure if it's only WiFi calling alone.

A lot of people are not aware of the WiFi calling feature, nor how to enable it on your phones. Give it a try if you have very poor to no cell service.

[NH.Solar]

I installed a Wilson DT booster a year ago and gained at least one bar at all times. I do still lose a call now and then, but nowhere near as often as I used to.
The DT does however require mounting an external antenna and connection to your modem. I mounted it to a 3 foot pole attached to the septic vent on my roof and ran the lead into the house right alongside the vent pipe. The antennae was aimed directly at my strongest cell tower using a free phone app called "OpenSignal". Not quite as easy as full wireless, but it was relatively inexpensive, easy to install, and most importantly... it works!

[Hillcountry]

I have the Verizon booster that ties into my router...I have literally, no signal but with the booster I have a solid 5 bars in the radius around the house...I had heard after I spent the $250 on it that if you whined hard enough, Verizon would give you a free one...however the money spent was worth having cell service at my house.

[TiltonBB]

Originally Posted by Hillcountry

I have the Verizon booster that ties into my router...I have literally, no signal but with the booster I have a solid 5 bars in the radius around the house...I had heard after I spent the $250 on it that if you whined hard enough, Verizon would give you a free one...however the money spent was worth having cell service at my house.

You are correct! I whined enough and got mine free. They started at $250, then the more I protested the lower the price got, until they gave it to me.

I use it at a different house that Verizon admits is mid-way between two towers and acknowledges that I have poor service at that location. I had to threaten to drop them and repeatedly mentioned that my next door neighbor has At&T and they gave him an extender with no argument. It took 5 phone calls but it became more about winning than spending the money.

[wifi]

I get it, the squeaky wheel principle ;0

[Mr. V]

The "squeaky wheel" principle has worked for me in battling the insidious increase in cable rates.

A couple times I've called the cable co. (Comcast, out west) and whined, threatening to switch providers, and each time they lowered the rate to keep me happy.