3g Network Booster

[Lorin Cupples]

Ijust picked up the Nighthawk C7000 modem/router for our home to take advantage of our 400mb service. It certainly does that on a hardwired connection. The wifi connections are getting around 80mb on our laptops. While that is not slow, I was wondering what some recommended signal boosters are to go with this router to get the speed up a bit more. We live in a 1600 sq/ft house. Thanks.

I'm in the Texas hill country and get little/no cell service at my house. I can receive text messages and send them sometimes (if I hold my tongue just right). I occasionally receive calls and can retrieve voice mail if I stand in one spot at the back of the house - but it's not consistent. I have kept a rather expensive ($87/month) landline as an emergency line, but would like to eliminate that almost $1000/year cost. AT&T works perfectly (their towers are much closer apparently) and if I switched to AT&T I could eliminate the landline. I have seen cell signal boosters offered, and wonder if one could work for me. The booster offered by Verizon is internet dependent and I do not have great internet at the house- the only option here is satellite and has a data cap. The internet routinely goes out if there are storms in the area. Is there any other option for a booster that does not rely on internet? I have a two story house, and could mount something on the roof if necessary. If not, I'll plan on switching providers . Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can offer!

There are 2 technologies to get signal. The first is the Network Extender. That is the device that Verizon sells that you connect to a local Internet connection and creates a mini cell site. The extender can work where there is zero signal. The second is a signal booster. These do not use a local Internet connection, but take a signal that is already present and electronically boosts the signal. If you have insufficient signal to boost, these do not work. Typically an antenna for these is placed outdoors on the side of the house or property with the greatest signal. Unfortunately, there is no way to know how well this will work in your particular spot until it is tried. These are not sold through Verizon, but other third part sellers including Amazon.

you do not want to use these for a manufacturing area or in fact any business setting. These are meant to handle approximately 10 devices and have to sit on your network. They do not hand off any sessions so if you walk away you will lose the call. Look into what @robert762 said. That is a professional setup and is meant to handle the device load.

you do not want to use these for a manufacturing area or in fact any business setting. These are meant to handle approximately 10 devices and have to sit on your network. They do not hand off any sessions so if you walk away you will lose the call. Look into what Robert762 said. That is a professional setup and is meant to handle the device load.

Two 25,000 sq ft buildings for full coverage will need a much larger budget as $2,500 is going to maybe cover home grade products if lucky as you will need to piece them together with multiple boosters and antennas. You will be spending $2,500 and not be happy. Do it right the first time to save money in the long term. I have used zboost lte boosters for job trailers in construction sites and that hardly covers the whole trailer. When I was working for a construction company they put a booster in a 3 story office complex that costs about $40,000. I know some carriers will assist with funding the project just ask your business rep.

The phones would sense poor cell signal and automatically route calls over WiFi. This feature works really good. I have used it many times. And as you walk to an area with good cell coverage, like outside, the calls will be automatically re routed over LTE. Then once back in a poor area, the calls are routed back on WiFi. You can do this in the middle of a conversation and not lose the call either.

You should also contact the cell provider and discuss the issue with them. we had this issue with our Verizon service and while it did take a while, they have put a repeater antenna on the roof temporarily while they work our a final solution.

Minor nitpick: I had the older microcell (the non-LTE orange & white one shaped like an upside down Y) and it would hand off FROM the microcell TO the cell towers, but not in reverse. So if I was coming home, I would have to finish my call outside. But if I was leaving, it would properly handoff from the microcell and I could go drive off and continue my call.

You may have a different experience though, I think my biggest problem is the internal and external antennas are too close and have oscillation/feedback issues. Having multiple buildings probably just adds to my complexity and gain issues.

Given that you apparently don't want to simply buy one, you'd need to understand how they work and then design and build one. This seems to be mainly an RF project rather than an Arduino one. Given the "no idea where to start" I guess you don't know how cell phones work in which case it's probably not a realistic project for you. In any case, I don't see this as an Arduino project.

Unless you live in an extremely remote area, or in a country with no law, the best place to start would probably be with the government communications regulator. The conversation is likely to be quite short.

Main problem with this project idea is you would need formal 'type acceptance' (at least that's what it is called in the US) from the government's RF spectrum manager (again, in the US that's the FCC). You are talking about transmitting in regulate spectrum.

Boy I just love it when your looking for help on here all you find is assholes. I apologize for us nerds that have a lack of social and communication skills. I spent half my time in school keeping them from getting beat up..and still nothing in return

First thing would be to figure out what frequency your phone is running/transmitting and receiving. this can be done with a google search of your carrier. second is to do as I am doing and figure out how to build an amplifier for that general frq.(I need 1900mhz) Hope this helps you some...best I could do for now...still learning what all can be done with this amazing little board.

DeBoe75:

Boy I just love it when your looking for help on here all you find is assholes. I apologize for us nerds that have a lack of social and communication skills. I spent half my time in school keeping them from getting beat up..and still nothing in return

First thing would be to figure out what frequency your phone is running/transmitting and receiving. this can be done with a google search of your carrier. second is to do as I am doing and figure out how to build an amplifier for that general frq.(I need 1900mhz) Hope this helps you some...best I could do for now...still learning what all can be done with this amazing little board.

Not sure if that was directed at me, but it really IS a serious matter to be aware of and steer clear of. The FCC is rather mercenary and heartless when it comes to infringing on their spectrum allocations.

Why would you tell someone they can't do something because of lack of knowledge? We all come here to learn something. We all start out knowing nothing.

It is not illegal to make a signal repeater in the US. Every carrier has agreed that you can use their spectrum to boost your cell service. All you have to do is tell them you did it!

All you have to do is call and have your account marked that you have a booster.

Not illegal.

OK, let's put it this way. From "I have no idea how to do this" to "I know what to do" is about a three year full time University degree course. By which time you will discover that you do not have the test equipment to make such a thing, and buying it would cost north of $10,000. What is more after the three years you would know that you could not do this legally without another $40,000.

Using a cheap Software Defined Radio you can learn everything needed to build a cell phone repeater in less than 3 months. Much of what you learn in a 3 year degree course will be irrelevant - so why waste your time?

The point is that a low power transmitter at 800mhz i.e. 0.5 watts will do no harm. The whole LTE telecoms industry is starting to open up since about 2 years ago with 'democratisation' of the airwaves. I know this as I talk to some of the head honchos in BT, EE, Facebook, LimeMicrosystems etc. These people certainly do not consider me to be stupid or anything akin to a murderer !

As for the degree education . If someone is considering a particular course they should research it very carefully as electronics degrees may well only have a couple of days RF tuition in the whole 3years and you'll never get to use a spectrum analyser / signal generator etc. It's also likely to be horrendously out of date. I know this as I talked to a recent EE graduate. Instead you'll be bombarded by a huge amount of math and course work which will take up all your spare time and actually prevent individual research into RF etc.

Well, Grumpy, I'm glad we agree on something! I actually ditched my engineering degree after the second year because it was such rubbish. It seemed utterly pointless unless I was going to go into middle management.

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