cell phone signal boosters
 

I have poor cell reception in my home and was wondering if a booster was worth having. I have great service just 2 blocks away but it drops off when I approach the house. I do not have internet at home so using wi-fi is not a current option. If the cost of a booster/repeater is too much then I may get internet just so that I can use my phone.(sigh) I rarely make calls but use the apps on my phone frequently.

1. How much can I expect to spend for a suitable booster?
2. Is a signal booster worth the price?
3. Will the booster help with 3G?

the store should know of blocked (dropped) calls per cell site. RF engineering should know about them. Chances are, if you're dropping, then so is everyone else. There might also be an issue with soft vendor hand off (your carrier to carrier as it passes you along through the sites/RF neighbors), or intervendor hard handoff.

does this happen at a certain time each day?

Desperate for pron.

we had a repeater in our office as some areas got bad signal. IIRC it was a couple thousand bucks.

and FYI - 99% of stores have a repeater (piggy backing on mikeys post); thus when you go in there with an issue, somehow 'miraculously' the signal is great!

Pretty sure this is a misconception. My old lady works for Verizon and people come in complaining all the time that their phones get bad signal and then they work fine in the store. They don't boost the signal. Not sure about other carriers though.

It's bad all the time. It becomes nonexistent during rush hour. Internet is slower than dial up.

Who is your cell phone provider?

Been wondering this myself. I have the exact same problems in my home.

Where do you live? Just be general.

sounds like it might be a capacity issue on the 3G EVDO T1s. Just a general first guess.

switch ops should be able to do is adjust the number of T1s carrying EVDO into the radios. so if there are 4 T1s; and 3 are assigned to voice, they should be able to bump it up to 2 and 2 to accomodate data traffic. Generalizing here. Granted - all contingent on them being notified of the dopped calls etc.

Probalby the best bet is to either go to the store, or contact customer service to see what the number of dropped calls are.

I'm almost positive that the stores have access to reporting by the carrier in terms of dropped/blocked calls etc and should be able to corss-reference to an area and/or cell-site. Hopefully that will kick them off to get the switch to adjust the T1s.

I've had to notify Sprint RF in the past when we bring up a site; so they can get it into their database and begin tracking such things.

Near Excelsior Springs

Had the same issue. I bought a zBoost signal booster off of E-bay and haven't dropped a call at home since I put it in (roughly a year and a half ago). I won't say it's the best $200ish bucks I've ever spent, but I would certainly do it again. Dropped calls are frustrating as hell.

hmm. interesting.

Here's the newer version of the one I have:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wi-Ex-zBoost...item53f7ee4eea

I'd say that would work IF you have signal outside the house. If you live in a dead zone that won't help.

I have a weak signal in the house but at times it takes a long time to transfer data.

double check to make sure you don't have a lead x-ray jacket around your phone.

I removed the lead jacket when I had a tall glass of antifreeze.