Cell Phone Signal Booster

cruz-in wrote:
On Friday, i saw a perfect example of "more bars meaning more throughput". I was at the University of Maryland and a professor wanted to show me a video of an experiment on a magnetorestrictive sensor. Her phone was downloading the video very slowly (saying we had 10 minutes to complete the download). Well after a few minutes (and only 25% of the download completed), we got impatient. We walked over by the window and the data rate jumped dramatically. In less than a minute the last 3/4 of the video downloaded.

But you do know there are other perfectly possible explanations for this that don't involve signal strength.

As full-time RVers dependent on a cellular signal who like to stream video, I can attest to the fact that the Verizon cellular network on any given tower can exhibit significant changes in throughput from minute to minute. Even with a cellular amplifier there are periodic episodes ranging from ~10-100 seconds during which the cellular throughput speed can drop to zero despite the fact that the phone will insist it is connected to the network. So it's always possible that this was the cause of the professor's problem.

Even more likely, the stronger signal near the window enabled the phone to switch to the 4G/LTE network because the signal strength for it got above the phone's threshold requirement. At the rural location where we have been for the past couple of months, unamplified phones can manage to connect using 4G if they are outside but inside a building the reduced signal strength results in them running on 3G or even 1XrTT. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the professor's phone simply switched networks when she brought it near the window; it happens all the time for us.

The bottom line is that good antennas help, amplifiers help, and antenna placement is extremely important. But all of that notwithstanding, if you don't have a fairly decent signal to start with, nothing can help you. Our last S&B was located on a mountain without a line of sight to a cellular tower from any network. Cellular signals at the -110dB level could be detected but they were "bounce" signals (non-line-of-sight). Calls could be made and received "once in a while" and no amount of amplification would improve the situation (short of erecting a several hundred foot mast). So don't expect any amplifier to work miracles.