Posted: 8/17/2011 5:27:18 PM EDT
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I just bought a Verizon network extender for my house. It's a box that plugs into my modem through my router ports and gives me very localized cell service inside my house. Basically a tiny little cell tower in my house. It has a GPS built in that makes 911 work for this device. I had to use the included extension wire to get the GPS to a window so it would work.
I have not had a decent conversation on my cell phone, or any cell phone, in my house, ever. I have to move to where the signal is best and hope that I can keep it for as long as I need it. When I am working from home I had to allow all customer calls go to voice mail and then call them back on my home phone. If I had to use the cell phone I had to go outside for any service at all, or drive down the road to the lake and sit there to talk. No cell company has decent service here. I used to have AT&T and it was a joke. This extender only covers about 40 ft from the box. Not really all that impressive, but the furthest reaches of my little 1000 sq ft. house are now no problem for cell service. We don't have a second story so I can't say if it goes through floors at all. All I know is that I am super stoked to have cell service in the house. It cost $250 plus shipping. I think it's only available to verizon customers for purchase. The best part? My mom's tracfone works with it just fine too. I had no idea that other cell providers would work on it. I am not sure how many others will. I wondered if anyone else had similar devices or experience with this one. this is not meant to be like a cell signal booster. I was looking at buying one of those, but I have doubts about the quality of the service I would get from those. |
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Sprint will give customers a similar device at no charge if they bitch a lot bout coverage at their house. I have never used one, but am told they work well.
I just had an thought. Obviously it works over broadband internet, what would happen if you took one overseas and plugged it into the hotels broadband? |
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Sprint will give customers a similar device at no charge if they bitch a lot bout coverage at their house. I have never used one, but am told they work well. I just had an thought. Obviously it works over broadband internet, what would happen if you took one overseas and plugged it into the hotels broadband? That is one of the main reasons for the GPS. It will only function in an area that the carrier has a license. |
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Many smart phones will work with your home wifi network, no cost. But if yours doesn't have that, your solution sounds like it's worthwhile. I bought a cell repeater that's supposed to amplify the weak signal, but it's performance is flaky. My smart phone will use wifi for data and emails. It will not make calls over the internet. I find that even texts won't work over the wifi. |
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Network extender was worthless for me. It dropped 50% of my calls whereas regular service dropped damn near 100%. Service at my house had got so bad that they refunded the extender and let me out of my contract with no ETF. Before that I was a happy Verizon customer for almost 10 years. I now have ATT and it runs flawlessly. Sucks though, because I lost my unlimited Data. |
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I just switched from Verizon to T-Mobile. I had the same issue as the OP. T-mobile smartphones can make calls over any wifi you have access to with no other equipment necessary. Plus the wifi downloads and minutes do not count against your plan minutes or data 
You obviously don't travel for a living or you would throw your T mobile phone off the side of a mountain. No service within 10 miles of my house and it only seems to follow major highways. T mobile is a fucking joke. No phone company charges for wifi downloads. |
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I got pretty crappy signal here at the house when I switched to Verizon. AT&T was a little better as long as I was upstairs.
So I called VZW and got through to tech support. I asked the tech what frequency the closest tower was, because I was going to get a repeater and set it up at home. The guy at first didn't really realize what I was asking for, but figured it out, and then actually figured out what the problem was. See, I kept getting full 3G signal strength, then it would suddenly drop to one bar on the 1X band... and go back and forth. The tech found that my phone kept being handed off between two different towers. Dude was really helpful and stuck with it on the phone with me for about half an hour. He found the frequency of the 3G tower and we both figured (I have a degree in Electronics, I understand this shit) that a repeater would work well. He mentioned the Network Extender, and I had already looked into it. I flat out told him the repeater I was looking at getting was about $160, and the Extender at $250 wouldn't be worth it to me. He gets me to hold for a minute and comes back and says he got authorization to give me $100 off if I went and bought one at a local store. He even checked inventory for me, and I chose a store. Went and picked up the unit and they had my discount all ready to go. I've only called VZW twice for help and both times the service was AWESOME. Both times, the dude on the phone stuck with it, and did more than I expected. While I'm sure some people have had problems and ended up speaking with some morons there, I'd recommend taking it with a grain of salt. Anyway, I have the network extender, and it works fine. Covers my whole house with no issues. That 45 minute phonecall to VZW ended up eating 75% of my battery that day. With the Network Extender, I talked to my then-girlfriend for 3 hours one night, and my battery barely dropped 10%. The only part I DON'T like is that it uses my plan minutes. Cell companies could benefit greatly if they pushed femtocells out to more people. It would offload traffic from their networks and improve reliability for many customers. Yet they remain pretty cost prohibitive to most people. |
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I just switched from Verizon to T-Mobile. I had the same issue as the OP. T-mobile smartphones can make calls over any wifi you have access to with no other equipment necessary. Plus the wifi downloads and minutes do not count against your plan minutes or data
You obviously don't travel for a living or you would throw your T mobile phone off the side of a mountain. No service within 10 miles of my house and it only seems to follow major highways. T mobile is a fucking joke. No phone company charges for wifi downloads. This, I spent a couple of years working as a cell site tech for Tmobile, and unless they have improved an awful lot, they were terrible. I had a company provided Tmobile phone that I carried, and I ended up using a Tracfone nearly as much as the Tmobile. If you are not in a major city, or withing a couple of miles of an Interstate, forget about it, you can't get a signal where there are no towers. |
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Many smart phones will work with your home wifi network, no cost. But if yours doesn't have that, your solution sounds like it's worthwhile. I bought a cell repeater that's supposed to amplify the weak signal, but it's performance is flaky. Actually most smartphones won't. I forgot what the standard or tech was called, but it does exist - basically where you make a call over a WiFi connection instead of a cell connection. I hope it catches on more, because that would be a MAJOR convenience. I could ditch the network extender and just use my WiFi network. |
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Many smart phones will work with your home wifi network, no cost. But if yours doesn't have that, your solution sounds like it's worthwhile. I bought a cell repeater that's supposed to amplify the weak signal, but it's performance is flaky. Actually most smartphones won't. I forgot what the standard or tech was called, but it does exist - basically where you make a call over a WiFi connection instead of a cell connection. I hope it catches on more, because that would be a MAJOR convenience. I could ditch the network extender and just use my WiFi network. Me too, but then my Mom's cell wouldn't work. I do like this option a lot. I also notice how quickly my battery dies when the phone is working it's ass off tracking down towers. |
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I just switched from Verizon to T-Mobile. I had the same issue as the OP. T-mobile smartphones can make calls over any wifi you have access to with no other equipment necessary. Plus the wifi downloads and minutes do not count against your plan minutes or data
You obviously don't travel for a living or you would throw your T mobile phone off the side of a mountain. No service within 10 miles of my house and it only seems to follow major highways. T mobile is a fucking joke. No phone company charges for wifi downloads. I am still in my 14 day testing phase, but I drove 40 miles between my house and CO Springs with no drops on a call the entire way. I get service right up to my house, but not inside when Verizon would drop well before my house. I have no doubt that Verizon has larger coverage areas overall, but I was sick of all of the dropped calls when in supposed good coverage areas and spotty service in my office. |
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I just switched from Verizon to T-Mobile. I had the same issue as the OP. T-mobile smartphones can make calls over any wifi you have access to with no other equipment necessary. Plus the wifi downloads and minutes do not count against your plan minutes or data
You obviously don't travel for a living or you would throw your T mobile phone off the side of a mountain. No service within 10 miles of my house and it only seems to follow major highways. T mobile is a fucking joke. No phone company charges for wifi downloads. I am still in my 14 day testing phase, but I drove 40 miles between my house and CO Springs with no drops on a call the entire way. I get service right up to my house, but not inside when Verizon would drop well before my house. I have no doubt that Verizon has larger coverage areas overall, but I was sick of all of the dropped calls when in supposed good coverage areas and spotty service in my office. You'll be fine near highways and cities. I travel everywhere and would be totally out of the loop for days at a time. My buddy is out from California with his AT&T Iphone. he was blown away at how much of the day he was without service traveling through Amish country in Holmes county coming up to here, east of cleveland. Verizon does much, much better for me. He was getting all his emails at once when he finally got signal. |