How Do You Extend Your Wireless Connection?

ganjadude writes "So I am moving to a location where the cell signal is very poor (I don't get signal inside my house), and I have been looking at wireless extenders such as the ones that Sprint and Verizon have. I am brought down by the cost (Sprint charges monthly, Verizon $250 up front, AT&T.... well they are AT&T). Being that this is Slashdot, and a lot of us live in basements (I kid!), I assume that some of the crowd has had this issue in the past. What have you done, or what alternatives are available to someone in such a situation?"

Don't...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't move to that location?

help

[Anonymous Coward]

This should help
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875995063

Tim Rosco

Cell Phone Repeater

[mongoose(!no)]

My dad lives in the shadow of a cell tower and gets no reception on his property, but does if he walks to the neighbors house (100 feet or so). I suggested he get a cell phone repeater. He now gets a bar or two, but not a good quality signal. This is the one he got [thinkgeek.com] (but not from Thinkgeek, I don't think). It should be noted, he also got a directional antenna that company sells to point at the nearest tower besides the one he lives under.

sprint

[JDAustin]

I live between two hills in a area where Sprint has great coverage but in my house I get either 1 bar or roaming. If I walk 100 yards up either hill its perfect reception. Sprint sent me a Airave ($100 normally) for free and comps me the $5 month fee. With it I get perfect reception. The Airave is not a repeater but a micro cell tower that communicates with Sprints network over a internet connection.

Wi-Ex Signal Repeater

[crazyj]

As long as you have a decent signal somewhere close enough you can run a cable to such as in your attic, or on your roof I can highly recommend the Wi-Ex YX510 from ZBoost (http://wi-ex.com/YX510.aspx). I have one at home and one at my office and they're great — as long as you have a good signal it can repeat for you. If you have no good signal nearby then you're either S.O.L. or stuck with a "mini-cell" thingy from your provider.

T-Mobile

[yelvington]

If you get a Blackberry from T-Mobile, it will happily connect via Wifi. The technology is called UMA:
http://www.umatechnology.org/overview/ [umatechnology.org]

They may have other phones that do it as well. I don't know.

No femtocell host [wikipedia.org] is required.

Simple.

[BronsCon]

Landline.

If you're concerned that people might have to dial 2 numbers to reach you when you have no signal, set up a Google Voice number to ring both phones, then give out THAT number.

Problem: solved.

An added bonus -- you can configure GV to go straight to voicemail at certain hours. Get a goo night's sleep while still being contactable in an emergency (your phone is still on and anyone who has that number can be told to call it in case of emergency).

AT&Ts new Femtocell

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/att-microcell/

Re:help

[funkysoulbrother]

I've used a similar wilson setup for 3+ years now (http://www.repeaterstore.com/products/repeaterkits/wilson/images/pages/soho-50db-full-kit.html). Using the repeater to an internal antenna, I boost my signal from -1 in much of the house to 4+ (out of 5) in much of the house. The only down-side I've had is it's quite expensive, and not easy to install. The 30' foot cable from the repeater to the internal antenna is 5/8" thick and was very hard to pull through my walls. It works pretty good. My signal does pulsate a bit and will still drop calls occasionally, but I think a better external antenna will help. My antenna broke this winter from an ICE Dam breaking loose, so I think I'll get a Yagi antenna instead and make it a little stronger.

Re:help

[Nimloth]

That's the crappy car version, won't do squat for his home. Try this one instead: http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/801247.php [wilsonelectronics.com] The new DT series gets GREAT results while keeping costs low and installation troubles to a minimum.

Re:help

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Electronics-SIGNALBOOST-1850-1990-Amplifier/dp/B0014KRW4M/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=wireless&qid=1269561834&sr=8-7 [amazon.com]

Amazon.com, same item with 3 good reviews.

Re:Wifi

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why your bill shows what it does, but GV by itself absolutely does not do what you are describing. It only uses the data connection to tell GV servers to initiate a call (when using the GV dialer on Android or the web page on iPhone). From there it uses your minutes (yes, you can use a friends and family plan with your GV to make it look like it uses no minutes, but that doesn't make it use 3G data). It flat out isn't SIP. Now, sure, if you have it forwarding to a Skype number or the like then it would be using data - although GV wouldn't actually "know" it. If you were doing that though you could just use Skype or the like directly and not bother having GV involved (although GV could certainly serve to aggregate your numbers so the caller didn't need to know to call the Skype number, the cell number or other). Are you sure you don't have GV forwarding to a VoIP or SIP provider? Because not only does my usage totally disagree with yours - so do all the FAQ's from Google about their service.

Re:Cell Phone Repeater

[dingram17]

That's the downside of being too close. The vertical beamwidth from the antennae will probably be too small as there would be gain, meaning that you need to be a reasonable distance away to start getting coverage. This is one of the reasons that cellphone coverage in high rise buildings is tricky -- there isn't enough signal directed upwards from ground masts, and masts that are on the top of buildings tend to not have enough down direction. Some clever use of phased arrays would solve this, but the sites are set up to serve the greatest number of people for the least cost.

Re:Wifi

[noc007]

I do have a smartphone running Android with the Google Voice app and this is not the case. As MDMurphy stated, GV is a forwarder and this is how the app functions; outbound GV calls still call the local GV number and use minutes. I believe alop has a Gizmo5 account, which is a SIP service acquired by Google in November, and is the only SIP service supported to directly work with GV without a POTS call having to be initiated.

Googles FAQ backup what MDMurphy and myself are saying:
http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115079 [google.com]
http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115104 [google.com]

Even if one were to have a Gizmo5 account before they stopped accepting new accounts when Google acquired them, a SIP client app is still required; the GV app for Android will not connect via SIP and will still use airtime. The only way around this is to get a SIP account, Gizmo5 or not, and use a SIP client. GV can be optionally used depending on what services the SIP account provides and what you want to do. Additionally a service like SIP Sorcery might be needed depending on what you're doing:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ae8glDUXDsh9ZGR2eG43cjRfMzNkOTM4ZjNjeA&hl=en&pli=1 [google.com]

Google has stated that they plan on bringing SIP connectivity to the GV service in the future as part of their Gizmo5 purchase. Besides having a Gizmo5 account or jumping through the hoops of what's documented in the last link, I'm interested in how one can use GV via SIP or WiFi and no call over POTS or a mobile network using minutes.

Re:FRAST PRAST

[tomhudson]

Get a cell phone that can also use your wireless net connection like a lot of today's cell phones do.

A simple but usually effective solution...

[Announcer]

...is called a "passive repeater". Essentially, it is two antennas, connected by low-loss coax. You install a Yagi beam antenna in a spot with good signals, and aim it at the tower. Run the coax into the area needing signal, and connect another antenna to it, there. There are no electronics to require power, so it will operate for as long as the antennas survive. Cost is minimal.

The Yagi beam will give gain for both, receive and transmit. This has been done with TV antennas on opposite sides of a hill, to bring signals down into a valley.

Re:FRAST PRAST

[icebike]

Get a cell phone that can also use your wireless net connection like a lot of today's cell phones do.

Or get with AT&T and use their micro Cell (which is actually a femtocell) that uses your broadband to feed a home-cell just for your phones (or any you authorize).

You have to get over the bit about paying them to allow you to provide extensions to their infrastructure, but once you climb off that soap box it provides pretty good service.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0325/AT-T-Microcell-could-help-improve-home-cell-service [csmonitor.com]

It just went nation wide.

Try the WIFI-SAUCEPAN solution...

[commport1]

Tsk, tsk - you should read slashdot more religiously. Already mentioned here: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/12/30/231217/Boost-a-Weak-3G-Modem-Signal-With-a-Saucepan [slashdot.org] Give it a go, it'll cost you $0 if it works.

Re:Wi-Ex Signal Repeater

[kqc7011]

I use the Wi-Ex with a external Yagi antenna hooked up and it is pointed at the nearest tower which is 40 some miles away. I do have line of sight. It works. Used to have to stand on a table on the deck and hold the phone up. Now I can sit in the house and talk. I do not use it for data, never even checked if I could.