Cell Signal Boosters

SeaBee - May 5, 2021

Hey all, 

Does anyone have experience with any of the cell signal boosters available for rural properties?  NOT network extenders, but the actual boosters that don’t rely on an internet connection. 

Thanks for any perspectives folks can share! 

1  

I’m looking at moving off-grid and this is a concern for me. So I did a bit of research and this is what I found:

The weBoost home cell phone signal booster. It consists of an antenna that you mount on the outside of your house and point at a cell tower, and then a secondary antenna that your phone connects to. This will not help in an area with no cell service at all, but lets say you have 1-2 bars, it can amplify and boost that signal from the tower and give you better service at home.

There is also a car mounted one, but I don’t think that would work as well as the home unit because it looks like it has an omni directional antenna instead of a fixed mounted antenna pointed straight at a known cell tower.

On both of these models from weBoost however, the inside antenna is horrible. For the home version you have to be within 4 feet of the antenna, and for the car mounted one your phone can’t even be a foot away from the antenna and practically has to be touching it. Not sure why they made the inside antenna so weak, probably some FCC regulation of not having people send out too strong of a signal themselves. So if you are expecting to put this on your roof of your home and get perfect full bars throughout your house, nope, you have to be within 4 feet of that indoor antenna.

Back to the drawing board. This won’t be a solution for me, especially for $400-$500