Database Users

[Q] Free Network Extenders?

I live in a very rural part of NorthEast PA and have ZERO cell service over the air. I currently have a Verizon network extended running over a Comcast cable modem that does a great job of providing service to my home.
I'd very much like to try other providers, but can't really drop the money on a new network extended from another carrier.
Does anyone know if any of the big US providers will give a free extender for a new line of service?

I know T-mobile has the 3G extender, but you need to have some sort of 3g service at least outside. Also available on the newer T-mobile phones is wi-fi calling. So as long as you have a wi-fi signal you have service. That is free as well.
EDIT: I live in a very rural part of northeast PA as well, and wi-fi calling has never failed me. I have the MyTouch 4G..amazing phone with TONS of devs.

I know some carriers give them out for free... but often times its some sort of running deal.
Just give them a call... you'll prolly be in luck.

Thanks!
I guess I just have to start calling people.
t-Mobile's pricing would be a nice change from Verizon. Guess I'll start there.

You could also try AT&T they have the Micro Cell which is their extender. I had to pay for mine but some people have called in to say they don't get service at their house and convince them to cut a deal on one.

I'm on sprint and if you let them know you have poor service at home, they'll give you a airvana sprint extender for free as long as you mail it back to them when you end your lines of service

I just received my Airvana from Sprint on Friday. It was free with no monthly fees either. All I had to do was ask. I've been with Sprint 10 years, but it might work for new customers, too.
Sent from my MattedRed 2.4.2 SyndicateROM Epic 4G using XDA App

[Q] Signal Booster on T-Mobile Nexus 4?

I just picked up the Nexus 4 16GB unlocked from Google. Awesome phone and I have it on the TMobile $30 a month (100 min; unlimited data/text). I get pretty good reception everywhere except in my house. Now one window upstairs, if I hold the phone next to it I'm pulling 2 bars in and can make calls.
My question is, what's the best way to boost the signal and which ones are compatible with TMobile and the Nexus 4? I was looking at something like the zBoost SOHO but wasn't sure if it would work or if there were better options.

On regular tmobile phones they have WiFi calling butt he nexus 4 does not soooo my suggestion would be to try to get tmobile to send you a micro cell tower for your house. That way you can get full bars and good data speeds. If they don't want to send you one see if you can buy one on craigslist. That's what my friend did for his att phones. When I was in sprints network they sent me one right away because they knew that their network sucked in my area.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Don't get the one from T-Mobile. It sucks bad. I have had horrible reception and dropped calls with previous phones in my house. T-Mobile must have known I was having dropped calls because I received a text message from them about it saying to call about a free in home booster.
You have to sign a 2 year contract for it again and the thing blows. Numerous times a week I have had to restart both pieces because I could not make or receive any calls in my house even though I had full bars. Once I got my Nexus 4 I unplugged the booster and have not needed it with my N4. I have learnt to switch to 2g at the house and use WiFi for data and have had no issues. Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Use Vonage to make outgoing calls, I guess, that might help a bit. It uses your T-Mobile number and it's free, and it uses Wifi, but not sure what to do for the incoming calls and things like that.

So does anyone know which one is compatible or best? Will the zBoost YX545 work with the Nexus 4 on T-Mobile?

Monk4Life said:
Don't get the one from T-Mobile. It sucks bad. I have had horrible reception and dropped calls with previous phones in my house. T-Mobile must have known I was having dropped calls because I received a text message from them about it saying to call about a free in home booster.
You have to sign a 2 year contract for it again and the thing blows. Numerous times a week I have had to restart both pieces because I could not make or receive any calls in my house even though I had full bars.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've only had mine a few days, so I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I haven't seen anything like that so far. Voice calls are nice and solid, and I'm getting the same data rates inside the house that I get outside. Also, the effect on my battery life has been significant. I work at home, so I went from spending most of my time with 0-1 bars to spending most of my time with 4 bars. Whereas I was previously ending the day with about 10% battery left, now I'm averaging around 40% left when I plug in at bedtime. I'm quite happy with my signal booster so far.

Can i get a link to this cell booster! i need one bad

famoustito said:
Can i get a link to this cell booster! i need one bad
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4683
http://support.t-mobile.com/community/phones_data_devices/t-mobile/signal_booster
http://cel-fi.com/

Dopamin3 said:
I just picked up the Nexus 4 16GB unlocked from Google. Awesome phone and I have it on the TMobile $30 a month (100 min; unlimited data/text). I get pretty good reception everywhere except in my house. Now one window upstairs, if I hold the phone next to it I'm pulling 2 bars in and can make calls.
My question is, what's the best way to boost the signal and which ones are compatible with TMobile and the Nexus 4? I was looking at something like the zBoost SOHO but wasn't sure if it would work or if there were better options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too had the $30 TMo plan and was going to get a booster but after reading all the reviews I could find I decided to just go with ST AT&T instead and save myself the $200 for the booster. TMo had horrible reception inside every builbing I'd been in. As far as the boosters go the more you pay the better off you are, teh cheap ones don't seem to work. But If you read the reviews carefully it's still about a 50/50 ratio of people who actually got one to work and all of them had to install the antenna on the roof of their house and you need at least 2-3 bars to begin with. As far as the cell fi systems from TMo go they seem to work best but thet are only for 2 year subscribers and not pay as you go plans. You can find one on-line for aroung $500.

Monk4Life said:
Don't get the one from T-Mobile. It sucks bad. I have had horrible reception and dropped calls with previous phones in my house. T-Mobile must have known I was having dropped calls because I received a text message from them about it saying to call about a free in home booster.
You have to sign a 2 year contract for it again and the thing blows. Numerous times a week I have had to restart both pieces because I could not make or receive any calls in my house even though I had full bars. Once I got my Nexus 4 I unplugged the booster and have not needed it with my N4. I have learnt to switch to 2g at the house and use WiFi for data and have had no issues. Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had the Cel-fi from Tmo since I got the Sensation a couple of years back. Just a FYI, you can buy the same setup on ebay as well if you don't want to be tied to a contract. I did it because I just got the Sensation as an upgrade in tmo and then within a week, got the tmo cel-fi system for free with the contract extension.

Monk4Life said:
Numerous times a week I have had to restart both pieces because I could not make or receive any calls in my house even though I had full bars.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just as a follow-up to my earlier reply to this: after another couple of weeks, I have still not had any problems like this with my booster. I haven't had to reboot either unit, and everything is working fine.

I hope yours doesn't but mine started having issues after a few months not few weeks of use. 2 of the same issues I have had with mine others are experiencing too. I am sending mine back but not wanting one returned. Good luck!
https://t-mobile.jive-mobile.com/#jive-discussion?content=/api/core/v1/discussions/21923
https://t-mobile.jive-mobile.com/#jive-discussion?content=/api/core/v1/discussions/35681
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Called T-Mobile about one of these a few days ago and was told they're out of stock until mid-summer.

Question, do you guys base your signal quality on the signal bars?
Supposedly tmo doesn't need to show as many bars or as high a signal to get call service and better voice quality than most other networks.
Straight Talk throttles, although AT&T service is pretty good.
I was hoping tmobile and it's refarming to 1900 had made some improvements.
Signal booster requires you to have wifi. It's an ok solution if you have wifi in your house, work or where ever you intend to apply the signal booster. But useless if you're moving around and getting crappy service/ signal.
If I'm within wifi access I'm probably not needing to use data on my phone anyways. But are you able to get cell service at least or is that lacking still would be my concern.

clockcycle said:
Question, do you guys base your signal quality on the signal bars?
Supposedly tmo doesn't need to show as many bars or as high a signal to get call service and better voice quality than most other networks.
Straight Talk throttles, although AT&T service is pretty good.
I was hoping tmobile and it's refarming to 1900 had made some improvements.
Signal booster requires you to have wifi. It's an ok solution if you have wifi in your house, work or where ever you intend to apply the signal booster. But useless if you're moving around and getting crappy service/ signal.
If I'm within wifi access I'm probably not needing to use data on my phone anyways. But are you able to get cell service at least or is that lacking still would be my concern.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who told you the signal booster requires WiFi? Mine doesn't and that was part of a requirement on my end to get it. T-Mobile told me that if I had WiFi at my house and my phone supported WiFi calling T-Mobile would not give me a booster.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

No need for Wi-Fi for the celfi to work. I got a celfi off eBay, to tide me over until some one gets Wi-Fi calling working.
The Cell fi works great with nexus 4.
Just adding my two cents as I have virtually no service in my house.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Monk4Life said:
Who told you the signal booster requires WiFi? Mine doesn't and that was part of a requirement on my end to get it. T-Mobile told me that if I had WiFi at my house and my phone supported WiFi calling T-Mobile would not give me a booster.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the "information". I see that it's not like Sprint's "signal booster" which requires a broadband connection.
https://t-mobile.jive-mobile.com/#jive-document?content=/api/core/v1/documents/4683
---------- Post added at 08:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:57 AM ----------
arvonn said:
No need for Wi-Fi for the celfi to work. I got a celfi off eBay, to tide me over until some one gets Wi-Fi calling working.
The Cell fi works great with nexus 4.
Just adding my two cents as I have virtually no service in my house.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just curious what steps are required to get it set up after getting one from ebay or cl?

I've used a signal booster supplied free by T-Mobile for 2-3 years. Works fine, I never have to touch it or give it a thought.
https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4683?noredirect=true
Linux user #266351. Android since v1.0

Nexus 4 poor data reception with no contract plan.

I recently received my Nexus 4 phone and went with a T-Mobile no contract plan. I noticed that I am only getting 2g service. Next to my connectivity bars it shows a G. My data reception is very slow. Is there a way to get faster data speeds by tweaking some settings or am I stuck with the slow 2G speeds? Where I live I am limited to Verizon or us cellular. In order to get a no contract with one of these companies I would have had to get one of their no contract phones. Had to travel about an hour to get to T-Mobile store. Is AT&T any better? Thanks.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

Do you live in an area with T-Mobile 4g coverage? If not, you are borked. If you should have 4g coverage, make sure your APN settings are all entered correctly. They have to be exactly right.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

After doing some research I believe the data service is only going to be 2G. What a bummer! Such a great phone and I can't use it to it's full potential. Only had it a week and looks like I'm going to have to get rid of it already. Thanks for the the info. Guess I'll have to go back to the money sucking Verizon.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

Sounds like you are out in the boonies so chances are tmo is not a good choice for you (ATT is probably lousy too) you don't necessarily have to go back to verizon proper though, pageplus is a viable option and could be much cheaper ($55/mo for unl talk/text + 1gb data) depending on your usage. You won't be able to use the n4 on pageplus but you could always "downgrade" to a galaxy nexus.
edit - Looks like pageplus has some updated plans, the $55 plan now has 2gb of data and they've added a $70 plan that has 5gb of data.

I don't really live in the boonies, but where I live there is basically verizon or us cellular to choose from. Can not use the nexus4 on their networks because they do not support the nexus 4 technology. I only get 2G with t mobile or att and the data speed is horrible. Believe I will be looking for a galaxy nexus 4g phone. At least I can use that on verizons network. Again, thanks for your info.

I received my Nexus 4 form T mobile and didn't really buy in to the whole death grip issue but noticed the cell antenna signal was really jumpy - i first thought it was software related. In my area i have my ime attached to my optimum wifi to pickup a signal which is heavily available on long island, ny. Switching form the iphone and sprint which i always put 3rd behind verizon, att. I assumed t mobile would be an issue but did not expect the poor coverage i got. The iphone on sprint never showed no signal, i actually cant remember one time with my evo 4g, nexus 3, iphone 4, 4s and 5 where i was anywhere saying dam no signal or dropped call while on sprint. tmobile on the nexus 4 would show an empty triangle as soon as i walked inside a building and was non existent in my home. I assumed software because with wifi off it would hold a signal longer, I'm ok with it dropping cell data on wifi and even tried to not use wifi on weak signal but still had issues.
The phone never went to edge, which i would have been ok with becasue it meant i could make a call, nothign worse than no signal at all. my friend had tmobile sg3 and in my house it would auto switch to full edge in my house, my nexus would show one H bar and then go empty until i switched to 2g or turned off wifie to kill my battery while struggling for one H bar.
I actually got tmobile to drop my contract becasue they could not supply a signal boost. i went to straight talk att sim and had issues, better but still issues. Moved on to gophone, while gophone att is the best signal i noticed since getting the phone i have an open support case with LG to send it in and but am waiting until i have my new nexus 4 form google play which is coming monday. I plan to test the new one, non tmobile while i send in the tmobile one to LG and will resell the LG resend if all goes well. im hoping i received a lemon and all my signal issues go away but have been really frustrated to date.
Especially with APN and prepaid settings, at least straightalk att sim had settigns included, the att gogphone is really secredt about what to give me, multiple reps give different info and advise i need different gophone plans.
Its killing the nexus 4, i even tried the t mobile $60 or $65 plan and could not get a signal in my home or get it to switch to 2g automatically.

note 3 goes crazy with verizon network extender and weak 4g

Hi guys,
I live in an area with very weak 4g and 3g service. So I picked up a verizon network extender. It works, but I notice the phone after a while starts getting hot and it looks like the data is jumping around, so to speak, The phone is hot and very slow so I know its confused trying to swap from the extender to maybe what I think is very weak 4g service.
Since I'm on kitkat, i cant disable LTE when I'm home. Any other things you can think of to fix this issue? It's driving me crazy!

I have a network extender and I dont have this issue where I live I have very weak 4g signal as well might be your phone
Sent from my SM-N900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Yeah the extender shouldn't be able to do that to the phone. You might have to send your phone in
Sent From My Galaxy Note 3

spinkick said:
Hi guys,
I live in an area with very weak 4g and 3g service. So I picked up a verizon network extender. It works, but I notice the phone after a while starts getting hot and it looks like the data is jumping around, so to speak, The phone is hot and very slow so I know its confused trying to swap from the extender to maybe what I think is very weak 4g service.
Since I'm on kitkat, i cant disable LTE when I'm home. Any other things you can think of to fix this issue? It's driving me crazy!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The extenders aren't real good thru walls or floors and are only good for about 30 feet from your phone. If you have a lousy home internet connection...you could have issues also
Sent from my Note 3 via Tapatalk

Extenders

I've have a note 3 and it has always had a low signal. I've heard of people talking about using extenders but have never seen one or talked to anyone that had one. My question is what is the situation where this is called for and how does it hook up. My note seldom gets at 4g signal in the house most of the time it's a low 3g signal with some dropped calls. My s4 basically does the same but my old moto RAZR mass and all lucid both get a descent 4g signal. Would a extender solve this problem? Of so how do I go about getting one. Thanks. Jesse
Sent from my GT-P5113 using XDA Free mobile app

I have the same problem as what you have and the tiered 2 tech support sent me a network extender router for test then it was epic failure for my area as it wasn't working very well in my area.
It depends on your area but it is not free and I returned the network extender router back to the Verizon.
No charge under 14 days.
Good luck ?

That's what u heard was you had to buy the things and if they worked it was minimal at best. I think I keep as I am for now because it is usable not quite the reception ithought I would get for a 700 dollar phone
Sent from my SCH-I545 using XDA Free mobile app

Jaxle67 said:
That's what u heard was you had to buy the things and if they worked it was minimal at best. I think I keep as I am for now because it is usable not quite the reception ithought I would get for a 700 dollar phone
Sent from my SCH-I545 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The network extender is a nano cell site. You plug into your home network and that's how you get signal. I don't know about the new ones, but the older ones had to be connected by a network cable to your router. If you have lousy home internet service....the extender will only be "good" for phone calls, not data.
Sent from my Note 3 via Tapatalk

The reception in our home is poor, for all devices. We had the original Network Extender, and now the 3G Network Extender, and for us, it works quite well.
It has an ethernet connection to our Router, and generates a cell signal. Calls then go through the internet connection. As pointed out above, it's for calls only. It will have no impact on your 4G signal. But if you're at home, and have an internet connection, then presumably you'd have WiFi and wouldn't need your cell signal for data.
Without the extender we had very frequent missed or dropped calls. It made us reluctant to even use the phones at home. With it, there is rarely a dropped or missed call. Works for us.
As for cost, I was able to give me a significant discount (50% or so) when I indicated that I wouldn't be able to continue with Verizon because their signal is so poor in our home. Could possibly get it for free if pushed; some have.