nanonews

Whenever Kumaar Thakkar’s next-door neighbors want to make calls on their cell phones, they walk to a spot near his garage door — the only place on their N.Y., street with good cell phone reception. Kumaar installed a cell phone signal booster on the roof of his garage after getting fed up with dropped calls and poor reception of signals at home. The device, which combines an outdoor antenna with a repeater, picks up weak signals and amplifies them or boost mobile.

Despite heavy investments by cellular industry dead zones remain a problem; some Americans are taking matters into their own hands. They are turning to a growing number of cell phone signal booster designed to amplify and improve reception. Cell Phone Booster was initially designed for the commercial market Now, small electronics companies are rolling out consumer versions of these boosters that minimize building and vehicle-interference and boost weak signals.

The consumer versions of mobile boosters fixes range in price from as little as for an antenna to several thousand dollars for a system that boosts coverage for an entire home. But prices are starting to come down dramatically. .

With two-thirds of Americans owning cell phones, dropped calls and bad reception is more than a nuisance. Even with wired home phones, business people often take calls at home on their cells. A J.D. Powers & Associates survey found roughly one of three cell phone calls had some type of quality problem. Others estimate 2 percent of all calls are never connected. John Walls, a vice president at CTIA, an industry trade group, says subscriber growth and industry polls show service is steadily improving.

There are two general categories for signal booster: Cellular antennas and amplifiers. Antennas can help cell phones pick up signals weakened by concrete and metal — materials that often obstruct cell phone connections. Generally, a antenna will boost reception in areas with spotty coverage. Antennas bolt onto the roof of a car or on a window frame and connect to a phone’s accessory port via a cable.
If cell phone signal booster alone don’t do the job, amplifiers can be added to the mix. Weak signal are boosted by these signal boosters.

Of course, signal booster won’t help in areas where there is no cellular service. And like many radio devices, even good quality signals can suffer from interference by other radios, walls or tall buildings. Consumers may not know whether the products can help improve coverage until they are installed.

Mr. Kumaar scavenged the Internet for a year and spent about on cell phone signal boosters that he now considers junk. He got the best results by setting up an outside cell phone antenna signal booster that connects to an indoor amplifier, he says.