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Cellphone Carriers Try To Control Signal Boosters
digitaldc writes "[Repeaters], which cost from $250 to $1,000, depending on how much they increase a signal, work by first capturing cell signals through an external antenna, ideally affixed to the roof of a dwelling. A coaxial cable then transmits the signal inside the house to an amplifier and internal antenna, which strengthen and retransmit it to cellphones...
In March, CTIA-The Wireless Association, which represents cellular service providers, filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission demanding stricter regulation of signal boosters."
I have one from Sprint at the office. After arguing that I might as well cancel since it's not my problem and I don't want to pay for their coverage hole, they sent me one for free. It has its bugs, but it works more often than no signal at all.
this is my sig
An old ham radio saying is all an amplifier does is amplify crap.
People get amps to make up with poor cell service, and/or the fact that their tiny little handset does not work in a rural area/congested area.
Since the majority of people out there do not know how to properly install an antenna/transmitter, I am sure that the amps cause all kinds of headaches for the carriers.
Personally I use in my truck a Motorola M900 ( a full power gsm bag phone) for its excellent hands free and for the high power when I need it.
Otherwise I carry my N900 around for portablily and cool features, but I do not expect it to work 20 miles from the nearest tower.
Anyone ever try a passive booster?
Overly simplified: it's basically an external antenna connected to an internal antenna.
http://jdteck.com/jd55-pr-kit-std-consumer-repeater-kits-p-692.html
Option "I" it's the only repeater on the market that works with T-Mobile 3G in the US.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
I think possible interference is a legitimate concern. I don't think requiring the device manufacturers to be FCC type accepted and requiring the repeaters to have variable output is not too much to ask. Hell just mandate the maximum amount of power that can be outputted by the device. I'm pretty sure most of these requirements already exist.
However getting the FCC to only allow the devices to be sold by the carriers or authorized by the carriers make no sense except to create another legal monopoly in repeater sales.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Whaaaaaaaaaat!
the wireless spectrum is only so large, and you can only multiplex so many people onto any one frequency. Even if you hop the around frequencies: they still only have so many total channels available. as much as one wants to think that the air will scale indefinitely: it doesn't. every time you add more time-slots to a frequency or frequencies to a conversation: it increases the latency and error rate.
digital technology doesn't quite do the job one hopes it would, as it's still carrying digital representations of analog data. you can only deal with so much latency before it becomes unusable.
Frequency hopping provides a great increase in the number of signals per band, but this comes at a cost to the surrounding frequencies and introduces an amount of CPU load on BTS's. this in turn leads to increased cost and increased complexity of the network. Frequency hopping is only implemented in dense locations, and not all carriers do it. (in fact, the majority of them don't, though this represents the minority of customers)
at the end of the day we agree though: hardly-regulated repeaters that occupy the GSM frequency bands are not the best idea in the world.
This of course is great until you realize that ATT will not allow you to use their femtocell if you have a business account as the cell is limited to five devices which you have to explicitly enable. This means guests of your house won't receive any benefit whereas the repeater in this building helps everyone. This biggest issue I usually have with ATT isn't reception though, after installing the repeater I still get system busy and dropped calls all the time. Fortunately my personal cell is Sprint so when I'm really in a bind I'll just use that. Sometimes in the server room I'm on hold for a long time, sucks to have your call drop after waiting a half an hour.
ATT also locks VOIP out of my phone even though its built into the OS so I can't use the built-in wifi to use my own PBX to make calls. Again, not an issue on Sprint. The owner of the company is almost fed up enough to change, I look forward to the day.
This is not "legalese"
Correct, it is technically "weasel words" that basically allow the cell phone company to write off any and all problems with service as something out of their control, thus increasing their profit.