Do Cell Phone Boosters Actually Work?

06/14/16

Cell phone boosters do an amazingly good job at what they are intended to do — take an existing signal and boost it to a large, indoor area. The quality of the boosted signal depends on many factors, but assuming you get the right size and have it installed correctly, places that used to be dead zones can get coverage as well as anywhere.

If you have ever heard that cell phone signal boosters do not work as well as advertised, there are many possible explanations:

• Older technology was not nearly as good as what’s available today.
• Improperly located antennas can fail to pick up the tower signal or fail to broadcast it to the areas that need more signal. Selection and installation are crucial.
• Substandard products do exist, including bogus gold stickers that go directly on your phone — these products don’t work and are unlike real cell phone boosters made for in-building installation.

How Cell Phone Boosters Work

The basic technology is simple. You need to have an available signal outside. An exterior antenna on the roof or side of the building receives that signal, so the antenna must be located in an optimal location.

Then, the signal gets sent to an interior antenna and broadcast indoors by the actual booster. The area covered by the booster now has great reception as if you were outdoors with a clear path to the cell tower.

Making Sure You Get the Right Cell Phone Booster

Choosing a booster can get complicated. Interference and obstructions indoors, such as very thick walls or metal walls, may hinder the booster’s ability to cover the square footage advertised by the manufacturer. In these cases, sizing up typically solves the problem.

Receiving the tower signals — including signals from multiple carrier’s towers — can be another hurdle. Some antennas pick up signals from far away in a straight line, while others pick up signals from a surrounding radius. Your location and the towers’ locations determine the best way to go in this regard. You can get boosters that pick up coverage from all carriers, however.

In other words, cell phone boosters do work!

Just as you wouldn’t install a knockoff WiFi router in a concrete room several floors below your computer, you also need to get a quality cell phone booster and have it installed in the right location.

These devices can do much more than prevent dropped calls — a booster also helps preserve battery life, send and receive text and data faster, and improve voice quality. The first step is conducting research to make sure you get a booster for the correct square footage, carrier coverage, then it’s a matter of educated installation so the signal gets boosted as powerfully as possible.