Signal booster/repeater?

[Pawprints1986]

Just was looking up a few different posts here about this... Has anyone tried one that works well? I'd like to try one to get better cell reception within concrete walls. LTE I get between 1 and 3 bars usually 1, and wcdma hangs out around 3 bars... I'm on a Samsung Galaxy s7 and it is compatible and there is coverage, it's just weakened between the structures of my building and likely the one close by nextdoor too. Wcdma has painfully slow texting for whatever reason. 

Anyway I just wondered if anyone has actually purchased and used one or if you've just been dealing with weaker/slower signal. Would rather not kill my devices battery either, the lower the signal the quicker the drain

[darlicious]

@hanwoongkim 

Here is what our resident expert @sheytoon recommends for your phone the same can be applied your boosting your signal.

Minimum recommended phone specs:

• 3G UMTS/W-CDMA/HSPA: B2 (1900) and B5 (850)
• 4G FDD-LTE: B4, B12

Currently VoLTE is not available and voice calls are only on 3G. SMS and data can work on 3G or LTE. Fastest data speeds are on LTE.

For LTE, these are all of the available bands on the network: 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 17, 29, 30, 66. Some bands are available in some locations, others available elsewhere.

Any phone you are considering should ideally have 3G B2, B5 and LTE B4 (or B66 instead of B4), B12 (or B17 instead of B12) for minimum coverage. If your phone does not have all recommended bands, you may have poor coverage / no service / slow data in some locations.

For LTE: B2, B7 will give you faster speeds. LTE B5 will give better indoor coverage in some downtown urban areas. The rest are not really necessary.

[hanwoongkim]

hi

public mobile booster is 900mhz

or 850 mhz or 1700 or 1500?

which one  is good?

[ladybearbc]

Thank you. The phone sits plugged in - about 4 ft from a window. We are on the 3rd floor - and single family dwellings are beside and behind us - that is about as clear as we can get. I am not sure where the towers are - probably near the QE which is about 8 km from us

[computergeek541]

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@sheytoon wrote:

@gpixel I hope you're being sarcastic.

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I believe that its very obvious that @gpixel is joking. A sticker cannot possibly improve reception. These things don't even make electrical contact with anything.

[darlicious]

@sheytoon 

Well it is thanksgiving weekend so you can pretty much expect @gpixel to be talking a lot of turkey.

@ladybearbc 

Is it possible just to move your phone close to a window preferably one that has a clear view not otherwise obstructed by other buildings ( especially concrete) or if not then have it not obstructed by large appliances, electronics or the inner construction of your building and/or elevators. Also periodically put your phone in airplane mode for a minute to establish a new connection to the network.

[sheytoon]

@gpixel I hope you're being sarcastic.

[gpixel]

@ladybearbc if it's just the one device youre looking to improve the reception on, try this antenna sticker it's only $4 from amazon.ca

CHIFAN Cell Phone Signal Booster Sticker.

[Triguy]

I don't think it is advisable to have your phone as plugged in as it shortens the lifespan of the battery.  Have you tried checking where the nearest cell towers are located ?

https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html. 

Another possible issue could be metal or if you have concrete in your building may cause interference.

[ladybearbc]

Oh Goodness!!!

I thought I would have a look at this post list to see if we could solve our problem with wavering and flipping signals from 0-3 bars in any one second. However, I got lost with the 850m??, LTE, etc etc.

Maybe someone could simplify it for me? 

I have an iPhone 6 - battery is beginning to have issues (it's about 1.5 years old but phone is mostly plugged in when it is at home) - probably because the signal is always borderline - that is fixable - get a new battery

However, the signal strength is beginning to annoy me. This phone is our only phone and has to be used to buzz people into the unit. To date, we are having some Phone calls go directly to voice mail - who knows how many people have tried buzzing and we have got no notification.

So... it sounds like a booster might work - but...which one? and what do I look for?

Thank you

[sheytoon]

That's correct.

[Pawprints1986]

So the default is already the least lag/latency? Best option ?

[sheytoon]

Looks like you can choose to use basic UMTS, or include enhancements for better performance... like 64 QAM which provide faster DL speeds, or shorter TTI for lower latency.

There's no reason to change the default here. Keep it on REL9. There will be no difference to signal level or coverage.

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon I had one other thing I wanted to ask... Since it's still signal related, could you tell me what these options mean under hspa setting? 

 

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon 

Just did some more playing around, was to ill to care for a few days... It seems that the only bands that are stronger than 5mhz are B2 at 20mhz and B4 at 15mhz... But these both seem to get terrible reception lol. My best natural reception seems to be B5 and B13, both 5mhz, naturally, lol

(This is all no antenna. Still debating if it makes enough difference to warrant keeping overall. Tried it hung up and things got worse lol. Have till the 12th or so to decide)

 

 

[sheytoon]

@Pawprints1986 WCDMA measures a different value called RSCP. -92 is not a bad value.

I'm not familiar with that app, but you are detecting a neighbour cell that is incredibly strong. If that's a real measurement and it's a valid Telus cell, you should be able to use it. If it belongs to Rogers or Freedom, you won't be able to use it. You can't force your phone to choose it. It's controlled by the network.

It looks a bit suspect, because the RNC ID, cell ID, UCID are not decoded properly.

[gpixel]

@Pawprints1986 instead of using the app, use your phone in HSPA+ mode to determine which HSPA+ tower is the closest then adjust your outside antenna till your HSPA+ signal improves.

walk around in your house and find the best signal. then whichever direction your phone is pointing your outside antenna should be the same

[sheytoon]

@Jb456 it's another way of showing signal strength. It's a simple way for end user to understand how good the signal is. ASU is used for all technologies. I'm familiar with how it's calculated for LTE, but not sure about 3G.

It's a conversion from LTE RSRP to ASU. The higher the better. I think ASU range is 0 to 97.

ASU of 60 is probably as high as you would see in regular usage. 15 is probably as low as you would see. Every 1 ASU corresponds to 1 dB of RSRP. 

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon here's a couple from testing wcdma, without antenna, just to see. Don't want to just leave it on wcdma but wanted to see how it measures on its own. What does this neighboring cell thing mean? And how can I connect to that one? Lol looks like great reception

 

 

[Jb456]

@sheytoon  what's ASU? I don't see all the things you guys are talking about but on signal strength it has -87 DBM. Next to it is ASU which changes, if I walk from 48, 49,50,51, 52.

[sheytoon]

These are just my own personal rules of thumb. Others may disagree.

RSRP better than -120 dBm is stable. Better than -105 would be a good target. A strong signal is around -80.

SINR above 10 dB is decent. The higher the SINR, the better your DL speeds. A perfect SINR is around 30. Anything better than 20 is excellent.

I generally don't look at RSRQ too much, as it's a different way of measuring quality (SINR does a similar job). Best RSRQ is -3 dB, meaning a very clean signal, which hopefully means you also see a great SINR. Worst RSRQ is -20, which means too much interference.

TX power is just indicating how strong your phone's amplifier has to send RF energy so the network can receive it reliably. The higher this number, the more battery drain and heat is generated. 23 dBm (200 mW) is the maximum legal limit. For reference, WiFi access points generally don't transmit more than 20 dBm (100mW). If you're always transmitting at 23, it means you're at the edge of coverage and your connection will be unreliable. Anything less than 23 is fine. Lowest will give best battery life.

Lastly, if you have a choice, I would try to stay away from low bands in general, because often they're narrow (like 5 MHz) and don't have a lot of capacity. If you can somehow get a signal for B2 (1900 MHz), it'll have 4x the capacity in most markets.

Ultimately you should go for the highest SINR while avoiding max TX power and having stability. Seems like you covered the first 2 criteria, but for some reason you're having instability.

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon just so I know when I play with it later on, what are the ideal values? For sinr, rsrp, tx power, other important number factors? 

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon 

The only other way I can think of may not even exist. Since at the window I do get good reception, it would be nice to have a 1 piece antenna which would act like more of a WiFi hotspot almost that I would place at that window with no true need for the outdoor part, like a cellular router sort of. When I did look before, I found the interior antenna alone but then they all seemed to say won't work without buying the other parts separately, which was way more costly. Also just to see I did try the interior antenna only at the window without the outdoor one plugged in to see if that would be enough but nothing seemed to happen.

[sheytoon]

Thanks for that.

RRC idle means your phone is in idle mode and disconnected from the tower in order to save network resources and phone battery. This is the most common LTE state for a phone to be in, because most of the time the phone is not transferring data. The other state is RRC connected, which means there is an active LTE radio connection.

Actually the stats with booster on look fine, so I'm not sure why it's dropping for you. SINR is low, but usable, and TX power is not near the maximum. Even your UL speed is good enough (1 Mbps) to be stable.

The only reason I was suggesting calling a landline was to gauge the quality of incoming voice (DL) and outgoing voice (UL). If you call a doctor's office or voicemail number, you can evaluate DL voice quality, but not UL. Anyway, not a big deal... I guess you could overwrite your own voicemail greeting and play it back through the voicemail menu to see how it sounds. Though based on what I'm seeing, I don't expect to see any issues in either direction.

I'm a bit stumped why you are experiencing issues with your booster. Hope you are able to find a good solution.

No need to block out anything. There's nothing that can identify you specifically.
I block out PCI and TAC (in LTE), as well as PSC, RAC, and LAC (in WCDMA), because I work in the industry and want to stay anonymous. That info can help narrow down which cell tower you are connected to. It's all network information, there is nothing to identify the user specifically.

[Pawprints1986]

@sheytoon 

So here's some more. This is antenna off, in a worse reception area

Here's a couple more while rrc says idle, not sure what that means as I moved to better reception area

And saying connected again

Heres a few with antenna, with video playing in the background

Speed test with, then without

Here's a couple while in a voice mail call. I don't have a land line, hopefully will think to look when in an actual call next. Only other thing I can think to test would be calling a doctors office I know is closed or something? 

Here's one last one with antenna off, holding it where I would frequently sit. But just holding it while in service mode without anything playing or downloading in the background

Also just to be sure, none of these numbers can be used to sim jack or anything can they? I noticed you had blacked a few of yours out in your screen caps... 

 

[sheytoon]

Glad you got the band locking sorted. And yeah you need to go back with 3 dots menu and apply any changes.

The first thing I noticed is that when you're in connected mode with no antenna, your TX power is 23 dBm. This is the maximum limit, which leads me to believe your uplink is not strong enough and the tower can't reliably receive your signal. Without a reliable UL, there is no point in having good DL.

Another thing I noticed is your SINR is -16 dB (and RSRQ is -15) with the booster. This is REALLY bad and basically means the signal is unusable due to interference and external noise.

What is the TX power when booster is active? Does SINR fluctuate a lot? Please take measurements only in connected mode with data session active.

I don't have much personal experience with boosters. Do you have a spec sheet? Is it a single unit or a pair (indoor and outdoor)?

Can you try a speed test with booster while you're on LTE? Also try a voice call to yourself on a landline if possible and check incoming and outgoing audio quality. I'm trying to evaluate UL and DL channels separately.

[Pawprints1986]

When it would default to band 13 lte before, it would hang around normally at worse than -126 and often fade right out going back to wcdma. I still have no idea why it defaulted to crappier signal before I got band lock working properly? It's only been this afternoon but I haven't seen it crap right out with this configuration. Except my earlier antenna screen cap.

The only thing I've yet to do is try it mounted on the wall since I'm just trying it out. It's about 1/3 up the wall, back of the couch. I don't know if that could be why the crap outs, or if that's the main outdoor antennas issue ? Being on a building I can't mount on the roof, so I'm seeing what upper window height will do so far

Looking to figure out all my experimenting within the amazon 30 day window (I think it's 30 days)

[Pawprints1986]

I don't know why it says this was moved to talk not working? As that wasn't my issue, but @sheytoon I have some more screen shots for you. 

So,  I've figured out that if I go in to LTE band disable, and disable all telus bands except 5, for some reason when I just pressed end via the 3 dots it didn't stick, but if I used back until I was at the main band menu and then press end, it does stick, so that issue is solved. 

So now what I'm trying to determine is if the antenna is worth using still while attached to band 5, and overall I'm not sure. The ones time stamped 120am are without the antenna, the others are with the antenna except the last one at time 128am, I turned it off after it crapped out (screen cap of this also). When I played with it the other day locked to use lte5 only, it did this crap out a couple times too... So I'm kind of debating if hanging around 3 bars without it, but still locked to b5 (which seems to be between -110 and -119 reception wise) or the better reception with antenna but with times of crap out is overall better. I didn't screen cap but after the crap out it goes bback to wcdma for a while too. Seems I have to choose between smoother and crappier or better but choppier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sheytoon]

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@Pawprints1986 wrote:

@sheytoon thing is it won't let me do both. I can only say LTE band 5 preferred with wcdma enabled, but it doesn't stick to band 5. Band 13 was one of the others I noticed last night using the LTE discovery app. But only 2 bars where band 5 gets 5 bars now with the antenna on. I don't understand why it would pick a -117 ish or worse signal when it can get a -98 or better signal on the antenna

If I go in and say LTE 5 only. It sticks to LTE 5 and with great signal, but can't make or receive and calls that way

May end up taking it back if I'm still forced on using wcdma only, or killing my battery on 1 bar LTE further away

Wish I could tell it to treat the antenna as a closest tower, almost like connecting to a specific WiFi router

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I don't have an S7, but Samsungs should be able to band lock easily. Are you sure you're applying the settings correctly? See below for S20 where it's working.

Start by band locking LTE to B5

No change to WCDMA

Overall status should be only B5 for LTE, and all bands for WCDMA (only B5-850 and B2-1900 are used in Canada). If this is not showing correctly, you didn't apply the changes from the first step.

During data session, I'm on LTE B5

During voice call, I'm on WCDMA

[darlicious]

@sheytoon 

Thanks Batman you're my hero! You always show up to help rescue me from a technobabble mess. Surely you can lend a hand to a paw to save @Pawprints1986 signal.....