Cell Phone Repeaters / Extender?

[Joe Wood]

I have an AT&T cell phone and reception at my house isn't always great, especially when in my office at the computer. What can I get to improve it?

[David Bassett]

... What can I get to improve it?

First, try searching I swear we just had this conversation. (Given my memory "just" could be in the last 10 years though.)

A different carrier is a drastic but possible solution.

There are antennas setup designed to mount outside your how for a clear connection to the cell tower with a matched antenna inside to connect with your phones. The ones I've heard about are passive, but it seems like an active repeater is also possible.

And the solution I know something about is a "micro-tower" from your cell provider. We have one from T-Mobile and it works well for us. I think they called it a CellSpot. I paid a small ($20?) deposit and donate a small amount of internet bandwidth to them and they provide the box which provides 4G LTE cell tower functionality within our house at no additional cost. (I also believe it is usable by any T-Mobile customer, e.g. on the street outside, but it's low power and that'd be unusual.) I'm sure AT&T has the capability, but don't have any idea what strings they might attach.

[ChrisA Edwards]

If your cell phone is not too old, you should be able to do WiFi calling.

Other than that, I have an At&T micro cell. They wanted to charge me for it, but I told them I'd just switch provider as I could not get cell service at my house and they sent it to me for free.

It does require a clear view of the south sky and also an ethernet connection to a router.

Then it works as a mini booster. You can add about 10-20 phone numbers to it, so friends can also use it with their phones when at our house, assuming they also used AT&T.

I no longer use mine as I switched to WiFi calling about 18-24 months ago.

[roger wiegand]

I can't speak to the android world, but with iPhones you just turn on wifi calling and as long as you have a wifi signal and internet connection you're good to go. We live in the land beyond cell towers in the suburbs of Boston and have one bar on a really good day, not enough to actually make or receive a call. With Wifi calling it works just as if we were in the Big City or out in the real country where they allow cell towers. Much easier than the solutions requiring additional hardware (been there, done that). It's worth buying a 2-3 year old phone just to get this feature.

[Jim Becker]

Turn on WiFi calling and it will solve your signal issues by using your Internet connection as a "cell" within your home. This is MUCH better than any repeater you can buy for any kind of money. ATT supports WiFi calling with any smartphone that supports the feature.

[Joe Wood]

OK I turned on wifi calling, we'll see how it works!

[Mike Gresham]

OK I turned on wifi calling, we'll see how it works!


Good luck. If yours is like mine, battery life will be killed. Instead of charging twice a week, I have to charge every day. My guess is that there is just enough cell signal to cause the phone to keep trying to connect. The other problem I encountered was that I could not reset my wife's VM password through WiFi calling. Apparently, ATT does not consider WiFi calling to be on their network. Fired up the Microcell and changed without issue.

The reason I started using WiFi calling was ATT sent me a text saying they are phasing out Microcell and that WiFi calling is wonderful. Not so much I think.

[Jim Becker]

OK I turned on wifi calling, we'll see how it works!

We get essentially no usable cellular service in our house and pretty nearly unusable outside, too, even though we are only a half mile from the tower...but line-of-sight is blocked by a big, solid chunk of limestone that's what's called a mountain here in SE PA. It's would be a short hill most other places. LOL Anyway, in the past before WiFI calling, we had to have a microcell in the house. That certainly helped inside, but didn't do anything for outside. WiFi calling fixed that big-time, especially after I put the mesh network in the house and my shop...we now have strong service almost everywhere we normally go on our not-quite 4 acre property. All of the major carriers support WiFi calling as do all of the better smartphones.

You should get good results as long as your wireless network provides good coverage in and around your home.

[Joe Wood]

I went down to a local AT&T store and they said they don't offer mini towers. Can I get one from somewhere else? I'd rather not burn thru the battery so fast using wifi.

[roger wiegand]

even with a battery down to 80% and "in need of maintenance" in my older phone I get through a full day on a single charge. With a new battery as of last week it only goes down to 50%. The phone sits on its charger overnight on my nightstand, so keeping it charged is not an issue.

[William Chain]

We have abysmal signal at our home as well (AT&T, surprise) and the WiFi calling solved nothing. Still abysmal, dropped calls, garbled calls, etc.

We have plenty of bandwidth, it's not our internet service or the quality of our WiFi either.

[Jim Becker]

I went down to a local AT&T store and they said they don't offer mini towers. Can I get one from somewhere else? I'd rather not burn thru the battery so fast using wifi.

MicroCells have gone out of favor simply because WiFi calling is more reliable and and easier to implement.

[Brian Tymchak]

Good luck. If yours is like mine, battery life will be killed. Instead of charging twice a week, I have to charge every day. My guess is that there is just enough cell signal to cause the phone to keep trying to connect.

The biggest killer of battery is the frequent connections made by the location service on the phone. No need for those services when you are at home. Turn that off and I bet you see a decent decrease of battery drain. Turn on location service only when you need it.

[Joe Wood]

Brian, why use the location service at all? Can you explain what it does? Sorry I'm not very tech savvy with phones.

[Jim Becker]

Some applications use the location service to provide "relevant" information to you. But it's certainly a choice you can make since that's not essential unless it's important to you. You can also keep that to specific apps and not allow it otherwise. Brian is correct that location services do use more power that without.

[Brian Elfert]

I just wish there was a way to force my iPhone to use WI-FI calling without turning off cellular. I have WI-FI calling turned on, but Verizon likes to chose LTE instead for calls. Up until the last month or so I would get one or two bars on my phone so my phone would always be on WI-FI calling. Verizon did some sort of network improvement so now I get two or three bars at my house all the time. I still think WI-FI calling is better at my house.

The only good thing about better LTE signal is now I can use my phone or the Internet if my cable Internet ever goes out. I had a heck of a time doing anything with my phone without cable Internet previously. I couldn't even call Comcast to report my Internet was out.

[Mike Gresham]

The biggest killer of battery is the frequent connections made by the location service on the phone. No need for those services when you are at home. Turn that off and I bet you see a decent decrease of battery drain. Turn on location service only when you need it.


Thanks, I'll give that a try.

[Jim Becker]

I just wish there was a way to force my iPhone to use WI-FI calling without turning off cellular. I have WI-FI calling turned on, but Verizon likes to chose LTE instead for calls. Up until the last month or so I would get one or two bars on my phone so my phone would always be on WI-FI calling. Verizon did some sort of network improvement so now I get two or three bars at my house all the time. I still think WI-FI calling is better at my house.

That's strange...my phone and those of the rest of the family always prioritizes WiFi calling over Cellular. But we are not VZ customers for cellular, however.

[Brian Tymchak]

I just wish there was a way to force my iPhone to use WI-FI calling without turning off cellular. I have WI-FI calling turned on, but Verizon likes to chose LTE instead for calls. Up until the last month or so I would get one or two bars on my phone so my phone would always be on WI-FI calling. Verizon did some sort of network improvement so now I get two or three bars at my house all the time. I still think WI-FI calling is better at my house.

The only good thing about better LTE signal is now I can use my phone or the Internet if my cable Internet ever goes out. I had a heck of a time doing anything with my phone without cable Internet previously. I couldn't even call Comcast to report my Internet was out.


That's strange...my phone and those of the rest of the family always prioritizes WiFi calling over Cellular. But we are not VZ customers for cellular, however.

I have an older android phone running an olser version of android, but there is an option called "Smart Network Switch" that if enabled will toggle the connection between cellular and wifi. I have that option disabled to keep the phone connected to my wifi whenever I'm home. Don't know if there is an IOS equivalent.

Edit: With this option disabled, I do not have to manually switch between wifi <-> cellular when I move in/out of my home network.

[Joe Wood]

Well, I have both Wifi and wifi calling turned on and still have lousy reception. What else can I try besides changing providers?

how can I check which provider would give the best reception in my area?