Posted: 7/14/2010 10:47:32 AM EDT
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Anyone use one of these? Do they work as advertised? I barely get coverage inside the house, usually 1 bar or none, but step outside, I get 1 or 2 bars. Lots of missed calls, and if a call gets through, it's very broken up or dropped all together. |
| I have been wondering the same. When reading the VZW site a few weeks ago, there was some reference that anyone could use the single that it puts out. I'm fortunate that I live in a semi-rural small neighborhood, but something you might want to check on. I'd love hear some first hand reports. My home office is in my basement and the signal is not very good which makes my HTC Incredable's battery life even worse |
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Quoted:
there was some reference that anyone could use the single that it puts out. From what i hear, yes. But there are options to grant priority, i.e. if you need to make a call, and a passer-by is using your device, they get booted. I do not use one, and have not used one. I did work with a client that had major reception problems. Supposedly, it worked great. They did need to make some firewall changes, but that's a given. One thing to keep in mind is that the device will need to be near a window, as it needs to receive a GPS signal. Most come with a removable GPS antenna, so the device only need be close. |
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Yes, I have one.
I switched to VZW late last year and found that sometimes at home I got full 3G signal, then it would drop to one or two bars of 1x. I called VZW and spoke to a very helpful tech - I was asking him what band the towers closest to me were on, so that I could buy a repeater. He figured out what band, but also figured out that based on my geographic location, my phone was almost constantly being handed off between two towers. He suggested the Network Extender, but I told him I wasn't looking to spend that much money... after a bit of chatting, he offered a discount and then checked stock at local stores. I got it for IIRC $150 and picked it up locally. It really helped with voice calls. That 45 minute conversation with the tech ate 70% of my battery. After the range extender, I had a 3.5 hour conversation with the GF (at the time) and it barely touched my battery. The bad parts are: - It's open, so anyone that gets within about 15' of it or so with a VZW phone will end up connecting to it. This is mitigated by it being in the center of my house upstairs. No one will get within 15' of it. - It has to be able to get GPS lock. It does have a detachable antenna with a cable. - It doesn't carry data (the new version does, so I hear) - It takes a long time to start up (not an issue if you keep it on all the time) - It uses your plan minutes (one of the biggest negatives, IMHO - using MY bandwidth at MY expense... ) The good parts are: - Good sound quality - no dropped calls - Much better battery life (standby in an area with shitty cell coverage will eat your battery quicker) Another goofy thing it does - it feeds your phone a location that is NOT the GPS location it gets from its onboard GPS. For instance, I'm just outside of Austin, TX. If I'm connected to it at home and I open Maps, it shows my location in Wylie... almost 230 miles north! I'm not sure if it's still an issue with the new design or not, and it's just a minor annoyance. Overall, it's a good thing to have. I wish they were cheaper and didn't use your plan minutes. I think at a decent price (maybe $100), they could sell the shit out of them. |
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My home office is in my basement and the signal is not very good which makes my HTC Incredable's battery life even worse I just switched to the Incredible, and that is when I really began to notice the weak signal. I had the G Zone V before, and although it also had a weak signal, the phone still worked. The Incredible will not work inside most of the time. Step outside, and it works fine. |