[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Boost Weak Cell Service at Home: Your Options here

[chuckchuck]

Just another reason to keep my land line!

[bajsterling]

By "selling" femtocells carriers are admitting what we've known and have been complaining about all along. Their service sucks. We've been paying inflated rates for crappy service all along and now we have to pay more money to supposedly get better service and no one has said that femtocells or even repeaters solves the problem. Well here's my solution. Why don't I just cancel my cell phone service and save myself the $145.00 a month I'm paying. I think that's better than paying them the $145.00 a month plus another $100 for a femtocell and at least $5 a month to use it. Paying carriers extra for a better signal. Now that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. And they'll probably get away with it. People, we can't rely on any piece of equipment so much that we'll pay anything to have it. There is a point where we have to walk away and we must be prepared to.

[TerriBrownfete]

This was good to know. I am doomed to not have a cell signal at home. I don't have broadband. It isn't available to me bcz I have a small independent phone company. Depressing.

[BlackStratCat]

I have had Airave for six months. Love it. Nobody said Sprint would be peaking inside my house. Well worth the investment.

[JohnStewartdfvr]

I live out in BFE florida, anyway.. we have had a verizion network extender for 2 years now...works like a champ...love it ..if you have week or no signal give it a shot, you will not look back.

[JohnStewartujpy]

I live out in BFE florida, anyway.. we have had a verizion network extender for 2 years now...works like a champ...love it ..if you have week or no signal give it a shot, you will not look back.

[JaredBrown0qum]

I have an AT&T 3G Microcell and I love it. I can actually use my iPhone for calls in my house now, I live in the middle of nowhere, miraculously there is broadband out here I got it for free from AT&T a few months ago, they sent me a letter with a promo code for a free one. Best thing they ever did for me.

[DKant]

" the device will remain available to all Verizon Wireless subscribers within range when priority numbers aren't using it." - Great, so now the neighbours can OFFICIALLY mooch off your 'unlimited' broadband connection.

[xyberviri]

bajsterling, on 14 April 2010 - 07:49 AM, said:

By "selling" femtocells carriers are admitting what we've known and have been complaining about all along. Their service sucks. We've been paying inflated rates for crappy service all along and now we have to pay more money to supposedly get better service and no one has said that femtocells or even repeaters solves the problem. Well here's my solution. Why don't I just cancel my cell phone service and save myself the $145.00 a month I'm paying. I think that's better than paying them the $145.00 a month plus another $100 for a femtocell and at least $5 a month to use it. Paying carriers extra for a better signal. Now that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. And they'll probably get away with it. People, we can't rely on any piece of equipment so much that we'll pay anything to have it. There is a point where we have to walk away and we must be prepared to.

Chances are if you live in a area with poor cell phone reciption chances are you have poor land lines as well.

[LiveBrianD]

But wait, a femtocell uses MY internet connection right? I won't tolerate the neighbors getting better reception off that when it uses up more of MY internet connection's bandwidth, thus pushing me further towards hitting the cap. If this is the case, I refuse to get one for that reason. I won't accept it letting the neighbors get better signal when it means I pay for the device and I get more data usage on my internet connection. Which, come to think of it, slows down my home connection. If I am to use a femtocell, either the carrier must be providing it to me for free, as it helps others get better signal when the carrier can't be bothered to improve their own network (why should I pay to help what they should be fixing anyway), or I should be able to limit the devices that connect to it to my own, like mac address filtering. It's not going to happen if this is how things are.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 18 July 2011 - 11:30 AM

[MLStrand56]

[/quote] Chances are if you live in a area with poor cell phone reciption chances are you have poor land lines as well.
[/quote]

I don't suppose you'd care to support that unfounded statement? I case you haven't noticed, satellite GPS has nothing to do with wired telephone service.

MLStrand56

[MLStrand56]

Probably not avail. in my country, But I'd buy a $10.00 worldwide capable, chinese knock-off, with NO monthly fee.

MLStrand56

[bigbear639]

xyberviri, on 18 July 2011 - 08:29 AM, said:

bajsterling, on 14 April 2010 - 07:49 AM, said:

By "selling" femtocells carriers are admitting what we've known and have been complaining about all along. Their service sucks. We've been paying inflated rates for crappy service all along and now we have to pay more money to supposedly get better service and no one has said that femtocells or even repeaters solves the problem. Well here's my solution. Why don't I just cancel my cell phone service and save myself the $145.00 a month I'm paying. I think that's better than paying them the $145.00 a month plus another $100 for a femtocell and at least $5 a month to use it. Paying carriers extra for a better signal. Now that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. And they'll probably get away with it. People, we can't rely on any piece of equipment so much that we'll pay anything to have it. There is a point where we have to walk away and we must be prepared to.

Chances are if you live in a area with poor cell phone reciption chances are you have poor land lines as well.

That's a lot of BS. My Best Friend and his Daughter live in FL. Different Cities and their Landline works well and LD 24/7 is included. Another friend lives in Cheltenham PA and no cell Service, but his Landline works very well another friend in NJ has poor cell service and a great land line she used for Computer Dial Up. I worked in a Communications center and we had 100 911 Land lines and had fair cell service 2 stories below ground.

[mikeyr]

We bought a Z-Boost which handles our 3 Sprint smartphones very well. We live in a fringe reception area previously with 1 bar inside the house. With the Z-Boost antenna installed on the roof, our inside reception is 4-5 bars.

The only gripe I have with Sprint is that despite many contacts with customer service, we were never offered an Airave which we didn't even know existed.

BTW chuckchuck, we dropped our land line.

[nkfro]

bajsterling, on 14 April 2010 - 07:49 AM, said:

By "selling" femtocells carriers are admitting what we've known and have been complaining about all along. Their service sucks. We've been paying inflated rates for crappy service all along and now we have to pay more money to supposedly get better service and no one has said that femtocells or even repeaters solves the problem. Well here's my solution. Why don't I just cancel my cell phone service and save myself the $145.00 a month I'm paying. I think that's better than paying them the $145.00 a month plus another $100 for a femtocell and at least $5 a month to use it. Paying carriers extra for a better signal. Now that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. And they'll probably get away with it. People, we can't rely on any piece of equipment so much that we'll pay anything to have it. There is a point where we have to walk away and we must be prepared to.

How does this differ from the information provided in the article?

[StephenSmitha8wd]

@TerriBrownfete

you need to move. lol

[twhite88]

TerriBrownfete, on 08 April 2011 - 03:52 AM, said:

This was good to know. I am doomed to not have a cell signal at home. I don't have broadband. It isn't available to me bcz I have a small independent phone company. Depressing.

Hey Terri,
Just so you know, you don't have to have broadband for a cell phone signal booster/repeater to work (see the 2nd page of this article). Also, cell phone signal boosters work with all carriers, so you shouldn't have a problem even though you are with a smaller independent phone company.

[MarkHolder]

Why would I buy more equipement to make equipement from ATT wook. We will b moving to another carrier soon as there is no sevice at our new house but there is great service a block away.......

[LindsayHaisley]

nkfro, on 09 August 2011 - 11:10 AM, said:

bajsterling, on 14 April 2010 - 07:49 AM, said:

By "selling" femtocells carriers are admitting what we've known and have been complaining about all along. Their service sucks. We've been paying inflated rates for crappy service all along and now we have to pay more money to supposedly get better service and no one has said that femtocells or even repeaters solves the problem. Well here's my solution. Why don't I just cancel my cell phone service and save myself the $145.00 a month I'm paying. I think that's better than paying them the $145.00 a month plus another $100 for a femtocell and at least $5 a month to use it. Paying carriers extra for a better signal. Now that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. And they'll probably get away with it. People, we can't rely on any piece of equipment so much that we'll pay anything to have it. There is a point where we have to walk away and we must be prepared to.

How does this differ from the information provided in the article?

The point bears emphasizing and repeating! I live in an area supposedly served by Verizon. I have been calling them for literally years asking them to improve their signal in my neighborhood. I'm one of the lucky ones. I can walk a couple of hundred feet to the end of our driveway and get a usable signal. Some people here have to go as far as a half a mile to get signal. So every month or two I call Verizon and bug them about it, and ask neighbors to do the same if they have Verizon service. Verizon always tells me about how they're constantly improving their network, which does me no good at all. Ultimately the squeaky wheel gets oil, or so I've learned from experience. I'm a pretty small wheel as far as Verizon is concerned though.