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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 clicked through Google news to get it "free"... http://news.google.com/news/search?q=stricter+regulation+of+signal+boosters
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
which is for carriers to improve their coverage, doesn't even occur to them, eh.
Customers so desperate to be able to use a sucky service that they're willing to do the job a carrier ought to be doing... how many other businesses would *kill* to have that problem?
From TFA,
"Supported by separate filings by AT&T and Verizon, the CTIA claims that boosters interfere with cellular networks and disrupt service to customers. As a result, CTIA has asked the F.C.C. to require that “the use of signal boosters be coordinated with and controlled by commission licensees and the sale and marketing of such devices be limited to authorized parties.” "
In other words, "we want exclusive rights to sell them, and not because it will make us tons of money and save the cost of improving our networks in poorly covered areas, we are actually looking out for consumers".
While I'm sure their motivations are at least somewhat greedy, I can't imagine the frustration of living next door to a guy who has a poorly configured or broken repeater that prevents me from making calls.
tough call...
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
If you read the article, the carriers have femtocells. So basically, the carriers want to have the entire financial pie to themselves. They can't do that if other parts of the commercial sector are competing with them, and with potentially better devices as well. So, instead of simply providing a better solution, they're approaching the government to regulate them into oblivion. After all, a government imposed oligopoly is just as good as one they generated themselves.
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.
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That may be true if the device is solely placed where the signal is poor, the tuner is inadequate, the antenna is bad, and the amplifier has nothing to work with, but the solutions that I've seen nullify many of these problems.
These devices have two parts. One part, located ideally outside, high up, talks to the cell company. the other part, located where the poorest signal is normally, talks to the cell phones. On top of that, these devices have much larger antennas than the phones do, and with more size they can also have better radio tuners. So, you're not amplifying crap, you're getting a better signal and forwarding it to another device that is in an area that can't get the original.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
No, they DON'T like boosters.
this is a fundamental issue in the way wireless communications works, when you stand in one spot in a city within range of three towers, your cell phone attempts to modulate itself onto a portion of the spectrum that will allow it to speak. This in turn means that all three towers now can hear you.
because all three towers can hear you, but only one is responsible for carrying your traffic the others make that channel unavailable to the people within range of the other two towers. the only thing the towers can do is reduce power to the quadrant the handset is in, allowing people closer to the tower to use it at the same time. even THIS however is limited: if the MobileStation can still reach the other two towers, they can't reduce power far enough to allow anybody else to use those channels.
once you install powered signal boosters, your cell phone now may be able to reach twenty towers. those towers each have a limited number of 'slots' available for users to use, (infact the number of GSM channels is currently around 32, though through timeframing of each channel there are 7-14frames per channel/second) meaning that you effectively are now multiplying your capacity based on how many towers you can hit.
the issue here is NOT with people that are in small towns/remote location, telco's are happy to let people put up their own repeaters to enlarge the telco's network at no cost to the telco. the issue they have is that people in downtown apartments with lead paint think that by hitting every tower in 15 square blocks just so they can repeat it indoors for one customer is a good thing.
by using the air to communicate: you have to learn to share it with others. we only have one global collection of air for which EMR can radiate.
because all three towers can hear you, but only one is responsible for carrying your traffic the others make that channel unavailable to the people within range of the other two towers
This is a overly simplistic explanation. GSM uses frequency hopping for the uplink (i.e: phone to tower) channel to mitigate this sort of interference. The other towers don't perceive your phone as anything other than random background noise. CDMA uses a different mechanism (spread spectrum using a pseduo-random code) to achieve the same results, plus it has the added benefit of being able to do soft-handoffs, i.e: your phone is literally talking to multiple towers at the same time.
The whole point of digital technology is to enable multiple users to share the same channel. Repeaters don't really defeat this. What they can do is increase noise along with signal, usually to the detriment of any phones within range of them. The carriers are rightfully peeved about them because they've spent billions of dollars to license the spectrum that they use and were supposed to have exclusive rights to deploy devices that transmit on that spectrum.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Did you even bother to read the contract you signed?
You make it sound like reading through a contract is trivial, and what is written is reasonable because it is written. The things are ubiquitous and intentionally incomprehensible. Every time I've tried to read such service contracts, what I've come away with is "We reserve the right to do whatever we want, and by buying a cell phone you agree to this."
The problem with "boosters" is that they're just amplifiers. They're not players in the cell phone RF protocol system.
Everything that talks in the cell phone bands is supposed to be part of a system that has RF power level control and talks to the cell phone control station. That's what keeps the transmitters from jamming each other. Adding a dumb transmitter isn't helpful. The right answer would be a "femtocell" unit which connects to an external antenna and connected to the cellular network, and is itself a proper player in the RF protocol.
It would be OK to have a booster if the problem was that you're in a remote location and just need some antenna height to get out. (I'm in such a situation; I'm in a semi-rural area and there's a hill between my house and the nearest cell tower.) What's not OK is installing a booster in Manhattan, where you can't get through because the bands are cluttered, not empty. More RF signal strength just raises the noise floor and cuts system bandwidth. In a crowded area, what's needed is another wired path into the network, not more RF power.
A cell phone that could seamlessly transition from a cell phone network to VoIP over WiFi would be consistent with the system design. There ought to be an Android app for that.
The answer should be obvious: if they want this, they need to support the ability of the FCC to enforce Net Neutrality.
What?! What does this have to do with Net Neutrality? It's simple:
Customer: We want Net Neutrality regulations to ensure a true free market!
Telco: No! You cannot tell us how to manage traffic on our networks! Regulation is BAD!
but suddenly the shoe is on the other foot...
Telco: We need regulation to protect the network! Regulation is GOOD!
Customer: You need to manage your network better! You shouldn't make this a less free market to solve technical issues!
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.