Whenever
Kumaar Thakkar's
next-door neighbors want to make calls on their cell
phones, they walk to a spot near his garage
door -- the only place on their N.Y., street with good cellphone
reception.
He installed a cell phone signal booster
on his garage after getting fed up with dropped calls and poor
reception at home. The device, which combines an outdoor antenna
with a repeater, picks up weak signals and amplifies them.
"As soon as I installed cell
phone signal booster,
I saw my signal go from zero to full bars," says Mr. Kumaar,
who was frustrated by the inability to receive business calls on
his cellphone. He says his Verizon Wireless phone works well,
except in his own neighborhood. Verizon says it investigates
problems and does its best to fix them.
With dead zones remaining a problem despite heavy investments by
the cellular industry, some Americans are taking matters into
their own hands. They are turning to a growing number of cell
phone signal booster designed to amplify and improve reception. Cell
Phone Signal Boosters were initially designed for the
commercial market. Shopping-mall and office-building owners first
spent tens of thousands of dollars on cell phone
signal booster to eliminate dead zones. Now, small
electronics companies are rolling out consumer versions of these cell
phone signal booster that minimize building and
vehicle-interference and boost weak signals.
The consumer versions of cell phone signal boosters
fixes range in price from as little as for an antenna to several
thousand dollars for a system that boosts coverage for an entire
home. But prices are starting to come down dramatically.
Industry-wide sales figures on sales of these products are hard to
come by. One maker, e-mobile says its sales have doubled from a
year ago, to 46,000 cell phone signal boosters
a month. Another seller, an American company, reports its sales
have quintupled in the past four years. Most of the cell
phone signal booster are sold directly by manufacturers or
online dealers. The cellular phone signal booster are generally
not carried by big-name electronics stores.
With two-thirds of Americans owning cellphones and 11 million
using them as their only phone, dropped calls and bad reception
are more than a nuisance. Even with wired home phones, business
people often take calls at home on their cells. A J.D. Powers
& Associates survey found roughly one of three cell phone
calls had some type of quality problem. Others estimate 2 percent
of all calls are never connected. John Walls, a vice president at
CTIA, an industry trade group, says subscriber growth and industry
polls show service is steadily improving.
There are two general categories for cellular phone signal booster:
Cellular antennas and amplifiers. Antennas can help cell phones
pick up signals weakened by concrete and metal -- materials that
often obstruct cell phone connections. Generally, a antenna will
boost reception in areas with spotty coverage. Antennas bolt onto
the roof of a car or on a window frame and connect to a phone's
accessory port via a cable.
Many of the products are aimed at people who spend a lot of time
driving. Jim Guusee, a truck driver who travels throughout the
continental U.S. and parts of Canada, says he often would be
without a cell phone signal for one to two days. After installing
a 33-inch-tall cell phone antenna signal booster on his rear-view
mirror, he says he now gets a clear signal almost everywhere he
goes.
If cell phone antenna signal booster alone don't do the job,
amplifiers can be added to the mix. At about the size of a
paperback, these amplifiers will boost a weak signal. Cellphone
amplifiers connect to an outdoor antenna, and carry the improved
signal directly to a phone inside a home or car. They attach
directly to the phone via cable or wirelessly retransmit a
more-powerful signal.
Of course, cell phone antenna signal booster won't help in areas
where there is no cellular service. And like many radio devices,
even good quality signals can suffer from interference by other
radios, walls or tall buildings. Consumers may not know whether
the products can help improve coverage until they are installed.
Mr. Kumaar scavenged the Internet for a year and spent about on cell phone signal boosters
that he now considers junk. He got the best results by setting up
an outside cell phone antenna signal booster that connects to an
indoor amplifier, he says.
Consumers should buy cell phone signal booster made by established
manufacturers, recommends Lance Wilson, an analyst with market
watcher ABI Research of Oyster Bay, N.Y. He recommends that buyers
inquire about return policies before purchasing cell phone signal booster.
Buyers also should closely follow installation instructions and,
if necessary, hire a professional for advice or installation.
Those who want to install their own cellular phone signal booster
or amplifier must consider their neighborhood's terrain and the
network technology used by their local carrier. Amplifiers should
match the radio frequencies used by cell-service supplier and the
network type, such as GSM, iDEN or CDMA. Even then, reception can
be affected by local conditions, such as hills or tall buildings.
Amplifiers installed improperly or with more than 3 watts of power
trigger interference.
Wireless carriers don't sell cellular phone signal booster for
fear of network interference. But they occasionally direct
customers to outside cell phone antenna booster and amplifier
suppliers. In cases where the amplifiers cause network
interference, carriers have asked customers to shut down their
devices, according to both device manufacturers and carriers.
Verizon says residential equipment must be FCC approved and
"properly integrated" into the network to avoid causing
interference for others. It continues to test consumer products
but hasn't yet made any recommendations, the spokesman says.
A search of "cell phone signal booster" on Google
returns 769,000 items. Buyers can read about others' experience
with cell phone signal booster by reading article on www.cellphonesbooster.com
and by searching the reader forums of other web sites. |
