Ducati Monster Forum

I currently have a home office, and a Sprint Blackberry that forces me to get in my car and drive to the end of the driveway so I can make phone calls in the morning.  Unfortunately we have a national account with Sprint, so there's no jumping ship for another carrier.

Does anyone have any FHE with in home cell phone signal boosters, or can recommend a good one?  Are there any out there that will work well with CDMA and GSM networks?  I have an iPhone as well that will drop calls inside from time to time.

Thanks in advance.

Something like this?

http://cellphoneboosterstore.com/# (http://cellphoneboosterstore.com/#)

No FHE though...

Yeah, that's what I had in mind.  Although 2500 sq ft is more than I need. 

If it would work in the 20 sq ft around my desk I'd be happy.

MrIncredible and Jammen did some research on it when we moved to this house (about 8 miles from the nearest signal) but they still haven't finished the project. [roll]  Maybe they remember some of what they found.

Contact your mobile phone administrator.

You probably have a "secret" account for people like yourself.


We moved to AT&T which blows. I seriously get shitty reception in San Fran and it is a huge city!

I have reps who live in NC and WV, they get zero ATT.

We just keep them on Verizon.


It is worth inquiring about. If you mobile admin is no help, ask to speak to their manager. There is always a solution as it is causing issues with your specific job function.

^^ I recently discovered my company has a similar "secret" policy, whenever I get the next phone I'm switching to Verizon (which will make it about 7 miles to the nearest signal from home).

Secret account??

There is a corporate policy of sticking with one carrier (AT&T) for company phones, we have a corporate account with them.

But if you really need a different carrier we also have an account for that (the "secret" account).  They don't tell most employees about it.

Yeah, I figured the same thing, so I decided to do some passive-aggressive pregnant doging to my national sales manager a month or so ago.  Unfortunately he started complaining more than I was about the crappy reception...so I'm pretty sure we don't have one at this point.

A large part of our company is on the construction side, which means of course, the entire company needs nextel two-way radios.  Also, all of our email, scheduling, and contacts back up off our Blackberry's to the server and laptops, so I'm sure I'd lose that with another carrier.

Well, do some research on the antennae and submit a request for your company to pay for it...

Have you tried calling sprint? I know VZW sells a box that plugs into an internet connection and gives you your own "base" signal for $100 or so.

An episode of this old house installed one in a timber house in Maine...

Verizon just discontinued their land line replacement module that looked pretty cool and was for getting signal throughout the house, but nobody bought...

Sorry, no FHE for me.


mitt

I've talked to one person who has the Verizon base.  Supposedly it works well, but if you leave the house connected on a call it will drop you- which I don't really care about.  I don't think Sprint has an equivalent.

They have something called an AIRAVE, but I think it's more for VOIP- with usage fees, etc.  I'd get a roadrunner phone or vonage before that...Sprint makes my life difficult enough using one of their products.

My wife has a Blackberry Storm through Verizon. Our house is about 2 mi from the tower. She is a realtor, so she is on the phone constantly. She has to go into the back yard to keep from dropping calls- not so bad in the summer but Ohio winters are a little nasty! If she's inside, she must stand next to a window and stay perfectly upright and still- if she bends down to write a note, she can lose the call.  After many calls and visits to the local stores to toubleshoot, Verizon gave us ("$250 value!!") a range extender, which is like a wireless router which takes your call and runs it by Ethernet to the web. Absolutely ZERO improvement! I was amazed: I really thought it would help. Finally, this week she said "I'm not getting off the phone to customer service until I have a different phone!" After talking her way up the chain, and dropping two calls in the process, they are switching her to a Blackberry Pearl flip- we'll see what happens...

So . . .what happens when somebody gets a signal booster that works and their neighbor gets a signal jammer that works, which one wins? Sorry, just causing trouble.

The Doc

Airwave doesn't look too bad, another $15/mo - you may also look to see what your phone can support if you get a wireless (802.11x) card.  A friend got a blackberry with free VoIP calling, not sure if this is part of the data plan now or not.
Also, if there is any place in the house that gets reception, you may try keeping it in that one spot and using a bluetooth headset to wander.  I have a plantronics set that lets me get about 50 feet away before I get static.

this is the one they used on this old house

http://www.wi-ex.com/Page3427.aspx (http://www.wi-ex.com/Page3427.aspx)

mitt