Cell Booster or Microcell

[SpeedRacerX]

Guys,

The good news is my wife and I finally moved after 19 years into another house we love. The bad news is the cell service (AT&T) is terrible for voice and data. We're still in Southern NJ but we went from being right near Philadelphia to moving 30 minutes South which is in "the sticks."

To fix this (because I work out of my house 2-3 days per week so cell service is critical to my Sales job), I've been looking into a Microcell from AT&T or these cellular signal boosters from companies like zBoost and Wilson Electronics.

The Microcell attaches to your Internet house network, uses some bandwidth and needs to "see" out the window to ping GPS. Easier install than the boosters but I'm not a big fan of it using bandwidth that might be competing with cable, Xbox live, Internet surfing, etc.

The boosters require an antenna on the roof to pull in the cell signal coming from the closest cell tower and then amplifying it within your house. The install is more difficult than the microcell.

I'm not finding definitive satisfaction results from either via my research.


Does anyone have a similar problem in their house today AND/OR are you familiar with either of these solutions??

Thank you!

[STL_G8GT]

We had the Airave from Sprint.

Good: You have coverage, whereas before you did not.

Bad: Coverage is limited to the range of a small home router.
You will not have coverage as you drive to and from your home.
If your internet goes out, so does your cell coverage.

We got rid of ours and switched to a carrier that has better coverage where we are.

Of the two, I would imagine the microcell would be better / more reliable than the booster.

Hope this helps you.

[Chewy]

Microcell ROCKS! Both my dad and sister have one in their homes and it works great!

[Slizzo]

Have you complained to AT&T about the cell coverage at your home? They're supposed to provide coverage at your place of residence.

Get others in your area with AT&T service to complain as well. If nothing happens plan with your neighbors to threaten to cancel AT&T service for a competitor. If nothing still happens, cancel your service. You'll probably find that an antenna will be placed quickly in your area.

[Monty]

Satellite phone. http://www.ebay.com/itm/TerreStar-Genus-Smartphone-AT-T-3G-Cellular-Satellite-GPS-Cell-Phone-/161358661921?pt=Cell_Phones&hash=item2591b9c921

[MongosG8]

Randy ..Im going through the same thing right now.. not the move(Hopefully soon) but the cell service.

I have Verizon and I have no service at my home. I call it the pit of despair! ..Verizon told me to suck wind basically unless I pay 400 for their repeater.

My neighbor just purchased a Microcell .. he feels the same as you but it worked really good 3 bars min now instead of 0 .. He also works from home.


I might go that route myself

[WhatNext]

Microcell works great! My son lives in the caverns of NYC and use to have to go stand by a particular window to get a cell connection. Bought the AT&T microcell and no problem!

Think of it as a special type of wireless router for range and setup.

[GXPaycheck]

Ditto on Microcell!

[waltjrUM]

I have the Microcell as well. My coverage issues (I believe) is because my house has aluminum backing and studs in the walls, not wood. So while coverage is just fine just outside my house, it's absolutely terrible for all carriers inside my house. I have one of the lowest internet tiers with Comcast and the Microcell does not appear to affect video streaming over my network, wired or wireless.

[SpeedRacerX]

Great feedback guys. Maybe I'll bump my Comcast evil empire speeds a hair too just to compensate for the microcell using some bandwidth.

[SpeedRacerX]

Have you complained to AT&T about the cell coverage at your home? They're supposed to provide coverage at your place of residence.

Get others in your area with AT&T service to complain as well. If nothing happens plan with your neighbors to threaten to cancel AT&T service for a competitor. If nothing still happens, cancel your service. You'll probably find that an antenna will be placed quickly in your area.
I did call to "discuss" this with them. When I could see they were pushing me to the paid microcell, I appealed to their customer service side and explained that I've been paying them thousands of dollars per year for many years and that they are leaving me no choice but to evaluate my options for better coverage and that might mean looking at another carrier; wouldn't you rather me just remain a happy AT&T customer. Their response was "I don't blame you for looking elsewhere but there's nothing we can do."

[MongosG8]

Their response was "I don't blame you for looking elsewhere but there's nothing we can do."


Great retention these companies have these days. ..No problem recruiting new customers but no effort to retain their long standing ones.
Been with Verizon since they were Bell Atlantic 1990 ..I asked for help ..explained to them and stated the same thing you did ..received the same response.

[STL_G8GT]

Sprint provides their Airave for FREE if the network doesn't cover your home after a move...

Start up the chain gents...

Edit: and what I mean by that is that the carrier cannot require you to stay in contract, or charge you a cancellation fee, if you move to an area where they do not offer service, or adequate service. In our case, the fact that Sprint had offered the Airave as a solution to their network shortcomings was hugely beneficial to my position that they knew the network wasn't up to expectation at our home, and therefor we couldn't possibly be asked to pay to cancel a service that doesn't meet minimum requirements. It was all true, and it worked. We shipped the devices back and were not charged a cancellation fee at all.

I was very happy with the way that Sprint responded to my concerns and logical argument about cancellations fees, etc.

[Greg@PacePerformance]

We had Sprint with a Airave. Service was ok if you could get use to the calls dropping when you left the signal area driving away when it switches to the normal towers.
We ended up switching to Verizon since they has 4G in our area and sprint does not.

[STL_G8GT]

We had Sprint with a Airave. Service was ok if you could get use to the calls dropping when you left the signal area driving away when it switches to the normal towers.
We ended up switching to Verizon since they has 4G in our area and sprint does not.

My experience was the same...

[SpeedRacerX]

Update. I went with the AT&T Micro Cell ($150). The bars in my office went from 1-2 up to 4-5. Looks like this was a good solution.

[MongosG8]

I wish Verizon had one that cheap.

[cstmg8]

Is there a similar Verizon solution?

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

[MongosG8]

Is there a similar Verizon solution?

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

Last I was seen not really ..there is a Samsung Micro Cell for Verizon but its over 350.00 ..sorry but I shouldn't need to pay over 350.00 to get service. Verizon already charges me a fortune a month for their plan (that sucks). Im most likely going to drop Verizon and go AT&T.