Hello! The place I work for is about to move to a new office in a basement. We went to check it out yesterday, and realized that no one had any cell phone reception. We all have Verizon, if that matters at all, and my boss is the only one with a smart phone of any kind. Does anyone know if there are ways to get a cell phone signal in a basement enough for at least 2 or 3 cell phones to rely on? Preferably something under $ 100. Specific brand names would be appreciated. Thank you very much!
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Answer by Beggi L
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this is what i did:
ReplyDeletei got a bluetooth headset and connected it to my phone!
then i put my phone where there was some signal in the room!!
i walked around with the headset and i could phone with no problems
presto!! ;)
cheers
You will need to contact Verizon and see if they have any sort of signal booster that they can offer you. I know that Sprint and AT&T have one that they give to folks that can't get reception in their homes. Your boss should probably call them and ask for one.
ReplyDeleteDepends on what you are allowed to do to the building.
ReplyDeleteFirst, speak to Verizon - they _might_ have an idea (although in a similar case over here, the answer boiled down to 'bad luck', to which the response was 'ok, I'll switch to another carrier'.).
After that (or in parallel) in the easiest case, you'll need two (external cellphone) antennas and a connecting cable: put the first antenna on the roof, the second in your basement, connect them via the cable. If you can't do this due to the building's regulations, you're out of luck - everything else gets even more complicated.
If that doesn't work, you'll need an active amplifier box on the cable between the two antennas - which products are available and legal in your area I'll leave to others; again, Verizon ought to have an idea about what to use.
Last possibility would be to set up your own Picocell in the basement - basically a small low power cellphone base station that ties in (usually through internet) to the providers network. Impossible to do without (at least) the provider's support.
If you only need to do it for a few phones and you can get a decent signal at most 10 meters/yards from where the phone will be sitting for most of the day, you might try getting a car kit with an external antenna for that phone, keep the car kit on the desk and move the external (car) antenna to the outside. But that will probably involve drilling through the basement walls (instead of using the regular cable ducts - unless your basement has windows) and therefore be unlikely to be permitted.