Published by Quantum-Wireless on September 16, 2009

Your new apartment can be perfect : great location, all the space you need and more. But then you go to make a phone call and you discover : no cell phone service. Your apartment may be a cell phone dead zone. That situation is bad enough if you also have a landline, but if you rely primarily on your cell phone, no reception can be a major issue.

No service isn’t exactly a reason to break your lease, but living a dead zone can create some problems. There are a few steps you can take to make the situation more tolerable. You can come up with several approaches to make sure you don’t miss important phone calls: if expecting a call on your cell phone (office number) you can either forward the call to your home phone, sit in the car on the street to take the call, or sit outside on your porch. Otherwise, you can either make all calls from home phone or from your car when you are out and about driving.

Forwarding your cell phone to your home phone number is generally your most reliable bet for making sure you don’t miss any calls to your cell phone. Beyond the forwarding option, you may have considered a cellular repeater. Cell phone repeaters act as amplifiers for cell phones. Most of the repeaters on the market aren’t exactly a good deal. And every time the technology changes — every few years, lately — the current types of repeaters become obsolete. But in some situations, it can be worth paying for a new cellular repeater.

Beyond these options, the only way to get cell phone service in some places is demolish the building and start from scratch. I doubt your landlord will go for that approach !

Reviewer : Naila S.
Published by Quantum-Wireless on August 25, 2009

I was cruising on the Long Island Expressway, talking to my friend on my iPhone about critical details for the final paper of our class. As her voice started to fade along with the signal on my phone, I knew what I needed: Wilson Electronics’ iBooster, a cell phone signer amplifier. I plugged my phone into the iBooster, redialed my friend’s number, and, lo and behold, the call was even better than before!

The Wilson iBooster, designed to boost cell phone reception on both second and third generation iPhones, improves call quality, reduces the number of dropped calls, and increases data rates. It even improves signal in “dead zones.”

In the box, there is an amplifier cradle to hold the phone, an external mini-magnet antenna that goes on the roof of the car, a cigarette lighter adapter for power, an adapter to hold the iPhone with the case, mounting clips with several mounting options, an installation guide, and a one-year limited warranty. The setup is pretty simple, and the amplifier can be moved from vehicle to vehicle. Though it is designed primarily for use in a car, the iBooster can also be used in a building.

The Wilson iBooster’s box and website boast of many things that sound great, but what does that all really mean for you? It means that with the iBooster, the quality of the call will be noticeably better, and your signal will rarely drop below four bars. You won’t have to worry about dropped calls or dead zones. You can charge your phone in the car (though there is a switch to turn off the charger so you don’t drain the battery of your car), and you can listen to music through your car’s system with an audio input. With a “plug and play” design, the iBooster is very easy to use.

On the downside, the iBooster always needs a power source, so it can only be used in your car or near an outlet inside a building. In addition, the wire on the external antenna goes from the hood of the car and through the door. The setup for this is pretty basic, and the wire doesn’t get in your way, but the length is too short for anyone who wants to setup the antenna in a more permanent place, like the back of the car. Lastly, the iBooster (805201) costs a few hundred dollars, but is well worth the investment.

So if your iPhone is with you 24/7 and you use it everywhere—sitting in your office pouring over project details, driving to work everyday, or relaxing on the couch in front of your TV watching re-runs of Friends—then the new Wilson iBooster will take out the agony of weak cell phone signals and bad reception. One of the most frustrating things while talking on the phone is to lose signal in the middle of the call, or worse, have no signal and not be able to call anyone at all.  For iPhone users complaining of poor reception and dropped calls, this is the perfect accessory. With the iBooster, you’ll never have the need to say “Can you hear me now?”

As you might imagine I have heard directly from thousands for disgusted AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint customers over the 10 years.  The one common theme that does not seem to be improving is transparency and self service technical support. Here are 10 way I think Google will bring disruptive change to an old stodgy wireless industry that has way too NIH syndrome (not invented here).

1. Choose the service that works best at your home or office.  Maybe its VoIP and roaming?
2. Self-service automation for technical support with SnapIn purchased by Nuance.
3. Display network outages, dead zones, dropped calls and network congestion on a map.
4. No more phone customer service and tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 support idiots.  Email does work :)
5. Seamless Wi-Fi / VoIP hand off when you want to call overseas or someone on Google Talk or Skype
6. No more .10 - .25 cent fees for text messages when Google can give it away for free with ads.
7. Voice and data fees may soon become FREE if location based advertising takes off 
8. Cloud based operating systems  is a no brainier for consumers and is slowly adopted by enterprise
9. Network speed, dead zones and dropped calls all become monitored by an independent 3rd party
10. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile become location based advertising experts instead of dumb pipes.

My recent problems with my G1 Android phone (3rd phone in 30 days) and experience dealing with T-Mobile's horrendous technical support has inspired me to write about why I think Google needs to take control of the industry. I am on my 3rd Android phone in 3 days and T-Mobile has no clue why I keep getting kicked off of the network.  Just to be fair I think T-Mobile's customer support is courteous and friendly but they are in over their heads with smart phones and incompetent employees.  As smart phones get more complicated for connectivity the need for self-service automation is apparent.