Cell phone signal Booster ?

Gdetrailer wrote:

rhagfo wrote:


Well I don’t have an instrument, but if you have good signal, but response is slow, that is lack of band with. It is basically too many users for the cell towers available band width.
We just came from a situation like that in the Columbia Gorge. Decent signal strength, but constantly timing out, had to use either early in the morning or late in the evening.

First, OP mentions very little signal, that is not a "bandwidth" problem.

Second, speed of Internet is highly dependent on SIGNAL STRENGTH.

Both cellphones and Wifi do something called "auto negotiation" for speed. The connection speed varies with the SIGNAL STRENGTH, less signal and the SLOWER the connection goes, more signal strength and the faster your connection goes.

To get the max speed you NEED the max amount of SIGNAL you can get.

One or Two bars of signal basically brings your Internet to a crawl or even dead stop.

Op is trying to find the best Cell signal booster to help stabilize their Internet speed. It may or may not help, just depends on a lot of factors like terrain, what is between them and cell tower. Cellphones work on "line of sight" signal propagation, a hill, building, trees in between can easily block the signals.

Most boosters will use an outdoor antenna which you need to place high enough to capture the most signal as possible.. Then there will be an indoor antenna which the cellphone will use.. Then you have the booster in between the antennas.. Certain amount of distance needs to be in between the booster antennas. Boosters are not a fix all type of thing, they also amplify any RF noise that may be around you also swamping the cell signal you are trying to boost.

This is much different from a "bandwidth" problem where there is too many people trying to use the same service from the same cell tower.

I totally understand the difference between signal strength and bandwidth.
I also have a WeBoost system in our trailer, and it will increase signal strength, but can’t improve bandwidth.
I can get great response time on two bars of signal, or timeouts with four bars due to lack of bandwidth for the particular cell tower and too many users on the tower.
I worked to a major athletic shoe company. If we had issues getting a high speed terrestrial connection installed in time we would use a cellular router to bring the store up and/or operate it on. One store in particular I could not get enough bandwidth during the day to get the computers loaded. I at the end of the second day came back at 10 pm and was able to load multiple systems at the same time, because fewer users meant more available bandwidth.
You can improve cell signal, but you can’t improve bandwidth that is controlled by the carriers.