Mobile Phone Boosters

[perchanski]

Hi All
Does anyone know if there is such a thing that can increase any cellphones signal within in a building, I have a problem on 1 site that my customers use and they are moaning that the signal strength is virtually non existent in crucial areas. i have tried speaking with Vodaphone but they really are no help at all. Any ideas that can help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again all.

 

[mikeydidit]

This is something like what is used in WalMarts.

http://www.wilsonelectronics.com////Products.php?Type=B

If you do a Google search you will find several different products available.

When is the last time you helped someone, just because you were able to?

For the best response to a question, read faq690-6594

 

[perchanski]

Ta mickydidt, googled it up and found a uk supplier.

 

[phoneguy55]

I've done this though my carrier, AT&T. They came in, surveyed the building and proposed a solution. The solution was a small cell tower connected to the PSTN by 3 T1's. I was even able to get them to pay some of the costs of the install as I had alot of AT&T users in the building. They also covered 100% of the monthly cost of the T1's. The end result was 5 bars of signal for my AT&T users.

Prior to this, i tried the boosters, but wasn't happy with the result. The carrier solution is your best bet.

 

[electronbee]

When you look for solutions be sure to consider all carriers for both voice and data. I mention this as we had the same issue in our building and myself and one other called around for quotes. I got quotes for systems that would cover all carriers for both data and voice. The other guy, who got the lowest quote, was only worried about Verizon voice and data. The price of the units was the same but we are optimized for Verizon voice and data service only which has proven an annoyance for others who do not have a Blackberry or Verizon phone.

IIRC, we used Tessco at

http://www.tessco.com/

I submitted them building plans, identifying which walls were drywall and others cement, the type of building construction, which parts of the building got good reception and which parts did not, etc. Then their RF engineer designed a layout for me using four antennas, power dividers, attenuators, two cellular repeaters, 500' spool of cable, connectors, connector tools, etc. I had two extra connectors and about 25' left of cable which is a pretty good estimate. Very efficient. Now, especially if you are Verizon, you have full strength everywhere. AT&T works well and lastly Sprint.

The major ticket items were the two cellular repeaters. You can't just light up any old repeater. It is essentially a mini-cell-site and it talks to the local cell-site so the phones hand-off between the two and it is constantly monitoring and adjusting its TX/RX power so it will not interfere with the outside cell towers. Our cost on them was about 70% of the total quote! But, that is because we had extremely poor reception and these have the most power. I believe the designing of our system was free as it was not itemized anywhere on the invoice and all the prices matched posted prices on their web site.

Installation was pretty easy especially with the tools provided. I just ran the cable in the overhead and terminated for the antennas. I am glad we got the quick-connect connectors and the specific stripping tool for the cable or else I would have been screwed.

I will see if I can find my other quotes so I can give you a list of companies that we went too. It was about 1.5 years ago so I may have deleted/thrown them out.

 

[perchanski]

Thank you for your responses