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Boosting Cell Phone Signals in Strange Places?
hedgemage asks: "I work at a retirement home and we have trouble with the cell phones that our nursing and maintenance staff use. The problem is that our nursing home area is built into a lower level that was originally constructed as a fallout shelter in 1960. There's a lot of solid concrete in the walls and ceiling. We have paid out tens of thousands to try and get an on-site mobile to work using NEC Dterm PSII phones, but they have proven absolutely unreliable (not just in the bomb shelter but throughout the campus) and the only solution our telecom provider has is to install several thousand dollars more in transceivers. If we could use ordinary cell phones, it would be ideal for everyone. Is there an off-the-shelf solution that could boost regular cellular signals in our bomb shelter?"
Theyre called cell phone repeaters. They are expensive ~ $300 - $100 and may run afoul of the FCC. If the cells are for job related communication, why not get some walkie-talkies?
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I like how this page showed up with some answers before anyone posted.
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Just use wifi phones and put wifi repeaters on the campus.
Get one of these.
http://www.jdteck.com/repeaters-consumer.htm
Yea they cost a few hundred bucks, but they look really simple.
What, you weren't planning on visiting the facility to which you'll send your mother, first?
You may be making things more complicated than they have to be by insisting on the absolute newest technology. Sometimes an older technology fits the situation better. For instance, if you just run some land lines down there, you can install regular old cordless phones. With the base-stations and the phones both in the sheltered area together, reception should be largely unaffected by the super-thick walls, and Bob is your uncle.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Wilson Electronics has some way-cool products as far as cell phone antennae & signal boosters are concerned: parent: They are expensive ~ $300 - $100
I assume you meant "$300 - $1000", but for a communications device that is meant to be used by tens [and possibly hundreds] of people, in a business setting, that strikes me as decidedly inexpensive.
Or maybe I just haven't been keeping up with telecomm prices these days [isn't the Apple iPhone supposed to start at $499.99?].
PS: The real "expense" will be the time you invest on ladders above hung ceilings, or in attics, or crawling around basement crawl spaces, pulling RG-6 coaxial cable.
[Or paying the illegal aliens to do it for you...]
Ask Slashdot: Boosting Cell Phone Signals in Strange Places?
What, like the back of a Volkswagen?
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