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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?"
I use google voice, over wifi while at home.
If you have T-Mobile and a blackberry device, you have use UMA over wifi as well.
--alop
This should help
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875995063
Tim Rosco
The phone companies do charge upfront/monthly fees for those micro-cells, but when pushed, they will often reduce or wave the charges for them to retain a phone customer. You might call your provider (be it Sprint, Verizon, etc) and talk to the retentions department.
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 (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.
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.
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.
I think I heard something about a pill that will extend the range of your hardware...
There was some drawback about a doctor and four hours though.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
-_-;;
I'll just be going over here now ----->
Living With a Nerd
Stan Swan's WokFi site from New Zealand: http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
Fast european mirror: http://exe64.com/mirror/wokfi/
SeqBox
I haven't found anything that is less than $200, but I have a product from http://www.wi-ex.com/
It is a simple device, that takes some work to get installed correctly, but works for me.
Even at $240, if you are going to be living there for over 2 years, it is less than $10 per month if you choose to look at it that way.
Just comes down to how important is better cell phone signal to you in your basement?
If you get a Blackberry from T-Mobile, it will happily connect via Wifi. The technology is called UMA:
http://www.umatechnology.org/overview/
They may have other phones that do it as well. I don't know.
No femtocell host is required.
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).
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
You can almost always talk them down to $150, and mine works flawlessly. Best $150 I ever spent. My (basement!) office now has great cell service, as does the rest of my house.
What have you done, or what alternatives are available to someone in such a situation?
Enjoy the peace and quiet?
ERROR: SIG NOT FOUND (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?:
...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.
Willie...
Works fine, just do like I said if your local net connection doesn't reach where you want. smartphones CAN make calls through your internet connection, unless your provider has disabled that functionality, in which case it sux 2 b u.
I've found that linksys helpfully installs range extenders in many neighborhoods already. Sometimes I can pick up my WiFi across town! Just look for "linksys" in the SSID. It's a great service.
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
It just went nation wide.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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 Give it a go, it'll cost you $0 if it works.
This may not work in every case - but if you have SOME reception in the house (as in the basement lack of coverage example) I saw something in the store the other day that I thought was a cool idea. Some of the current landline cordless phone systems now support being bluetooth clients. Basically you leave your cell phone next to the base (where you presumably have reception), and use any of the system's phones to answer or place calls.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Sorry if I'm being dense, but is this not precisely what the original poster means by 'wireless extenders' which he doesn't want to pay the company for? ($250 in Verizon's case, and he has looked at AT&T.)
Soapbox? It's a legitimate gripe. It's nuts that you have to pay AT&T to use your *paid for* net connection to take the load off their network. They should be paying you.