Wi-Ex ZBoost 510
This cell phone booster will increase your signal strength by one or two bars. If your home or office has dismal cell phone coverage, as mine does, this booster can make a difference. Often a spot outside your building, or on top of your building will have better coverage. This device picks up the signal from a small stick-like antenna and relays it via a cable to a book-size station where you want the signal. Using this in my studio I can now get two bars where before I had none. The zBoost is the least expensive signal repeater I could find.
A few important caveats. This is not a miracle machine; if you have no bars outside, there is no signal to amplify, so you will still have none inside. Also, the antenna and relay station need to be separated by a wall or ceiling or several rooms so that you do not simply create a feedback loop where the antenna is recirculating the stations emissions, creating a useless squelch. Lastly, the radius of boosted signal is small. It can serve a large room, or maybe a few small rooms. In my experience it will not fill a home, or office with a boosted signal. It is best to think of this as providing a boost to a room. To cover a large area you'll need more than one, but I don't have any experience in what happens with overlapping coverage.
I have the dual spectrum variety of EZBooster, which covers most carriers, in part as a service to visitors. I also found that finding the optimal location for the antenna is not obvisous or trivial. Placement makes a huge difference; it's worth trying all kinds of positions. Sometimes attics and corners of rooms will work, and sometimes near windows are NOT better. There's a 50-foot interconnecting white coaxil cable which should be long enough, but can be ugly.
For years I've tried to get my local cell phone companies to boost the signal in our neighborhood, but with no success. This modest gadget at least gives me coverage in my home office.
-- KK
Wi-Ex ZBoost YX 510
$290
Avialable from Amazon
Manufactured by Repeater Store
Favorite (15)
der5er
Keep in mind, many times the hindrance to cell coverage isn't the local cell carriers reluctance to provide coverage. They want to. The problem may be your neighbors. Recently, a few local carriers wanted to provide better coverage to my neighborhood, but were blocked by the home owners' association. The board was open to it, but the membership was vehemently opposed. I've seen this in multiple areas, so I know NIMBYs aren't specific to my neighborhood.
Much of the opposition comes from misunderstanding the (lack of) dangers of RF radiation from cell towers.
sum schmoe
wow, a fantastic product.... what a fabfind! thx
B. Waite
I can confirm that this works as advertised, but as you say, miracles are not included.
To determine if this will work for you, take your phone up to your roof (or wherever you'll install the antenna). The signal you get there is the same as you'll get when you're near the base station.
Jay
B. Waite is right on spot. I have one of these with the antenna in my attic and the extra reception is very noticeable. When I take enough time to run cables through walls I'll move the box closer to the center of the house to take better advantage of it. I've talked to others and the general consensus is to replace the generic antennas that come in the box with better ones.
travis
I bought one of these through Amazon to improve the reception of the two blackberry phones that my wife and I use. it was a 200% improvement in the signal for my phone, but it did not improve things as much with her phone, which uses a different carrier. It's bad enough that I'm going to experiment with directional antennae, instead of the omnidirectional antenna shown. If it were just me, I would be very happy with it.
Advice to all: definitely use the 800 number that Amazon provides, so you can give them your carrier and your zip code to get advice on the precise model to use. It was quick and competent. They're not sales people, they don't care if you buy from them or not.
peterfallow
I experienced a similar problem. When I bought my iPhone, I first checked with “Got Reception?” (Gotreception.com) It’s a great resource for finding out where reception problems are most likely to occur BEFORE you lock yourself with a specific carrier.