As Crave’s Nicole Lee explains, AT&T is experimenting with in-home cell phone boosters, also known as femtocells, which are designed to boost the cell phone signal via your high-speed Internet connection.
According to one iPhone Atlas reader’s experience with the already-on-the-market zboost, “It’s a pricey solution at around $250 US, but it does work. It requires that I position an antenna in my kitchen window, where I receive a strong signal, then run a coax cable from the kitchen to my office, where it connects to a remote unit with another antenna. I get all five bars as a result.”
Back in early November, we explained a few interesting pieces of information regarding AT&T’s future plans with the iPhone, and how they were testing multiple technologies in their labs. Femtocell research is a high priority for AT&T. It is a unified technology that may have the ability to cohesively sync many of their services.
AT&T is reportedly planning to make their own version of the zboost available in a trial market sometime next year, hoping to improve 3G performance in addition to enhancing its voice signals. There is no indication yet on how AT&T’s cell phone booster will be configured, or how much it will sell for. But if it is anything like that of zboost’s “simple” solution, we won’t be surprised if it requires standing on our roof holding a long metal probe with tin foil on the end.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
2 Comments to “AT&T Testing Femtocells, Home Reception A Top Priority”
I experienced a similar problem. When I bought my iPhone, I first checked with “Got Reception?” (Gotreception.com) It’s a great resource for finding out where reception problems are most likely to occur BEFORE you lock yourself with a specific carrier.
[Reply]
i have a super mini iphone but lost my charger, do you where i can get one. thanks
[Reply]