3G Signal Booster

[NDA]

Anyone use one?

Any good?

I get one bar by my kitchen window and am thinking of investing in a booster..... Not sure!

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I'm on EE and understand their signal booster is for business customers only.... Was wondering about the amplifier kits you can buy.

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tim0409 said:

Steffan said:

NDA said:

Anyone use one?

Any good?

I get one bar by my kitchen window and am thinking of investing in a booster..... Not sure!

Yes and yes. Excellent reception and signal all the time. From Three came free because they admitted that the recent poor reception was down to them. Best signal I have ever had never varies. Otherwise would be £100 odd.

Recently signed up to 3's £15 sim only one plan and when I complained about the poor signal in my house they ran a few checks and the next day I received the booster which plugs into my router - absolutely fantastic and 3's service has been surprisingly superb.

I waited 20 minutes on the phone for EE customer service and gave up. There must be an easier way!

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TEKNOPUG said:

Had Vodafone Sure Signal for a few years and always worked very well.

When I was with Vodafone a few years ago, I had a sure signal..... I would say it worked 30% of the time. Very frustrating.

By all accounts the EE device is very good, perhaps the femtocell technology has moved on a bit. The problem is getting hold of one.

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Mr E said:

For the record, the 3 device and the EE device are the same device.

That's a Nokia device isn't it?

I don't know much about the subject, but it has to be 'registered' with the mobile provider to work I think.....

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EE are sending me a femtocell ..... Should arrive later this week. I shall report back.

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Mr E said:

Splendid. That's one of mine.
I'm now hoping the thing works for you or I'll look like more of an idiot than usual.

Do you work with/for EE?

I'm currently using the BT SmartTalk app on my 5S to make calls, so a femtocell will be so much better. Many moons ago I had the Vodafone device, but it was very unreliable.... I'm really hoping the EE will be the answer.

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Amateurish said:

NDA said:

EE are sending me a femtocell ..... Should arrive later this week. I shall report back.

How did you manage that? I spent weeks trying to convince EE to sell me a femtocell.

In the end I gave up, moved to Vodafone, and now have their signal booster which seems to work perfectly.

I sent a very polite email to the CEO of EE, simply saying that their service is splendid - except where I live. And that I'd heard about a femtocell being available and would he send me one as we have 3 EE customers in the house (wife, daughter and me). I received a call from HQ today saying they'd send me one.

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Mr E said:

No. I work for a company that makes kit that the operators buy - specifically the femtocell box they're sending you.

Do you know if there is any port forwarding I need to set up on my router? Thanks....

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Pints said:

I have one, and it's 'plug in 'n go'. Signal is fantastic and the only indication that it's working (apart from the full strength signal on your phone) is a beep when you connect a call.

Ah ok, thanks. Good info.

EE have some sort of computer problem at the moment preventing the registration of Signal Boxes - so mine is plugged in and ready, but not working just yet.

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Mr E said:

Should not be required (unless you have a firewall that blocks IPSEC for some reason). We worked very hard to produce a box that *should* be plug and play.

Great - many thanks.

I can see it on my network, but EE have a glitch preventing activation/registration so I've had a rapid blinking green light since yesterday. Looking forward to having 3G at home soon.

ETA - its just started working.... 100% phone signal from a previous 4%. Wonderful! It's going to take some getting used to - having a mobile that works at home.

Edited by NDA on Thursday 21st November 18:56

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Mr E said:

Hurrah. 6 years of bloody hard work well spent.
What sort of range are you getting out of interest?

(I hope it stays up).

Range is OK... I live in a fairly large detached house with no neighbours in sight and it's placed fairly centrally in the house at desk level. It is the full (supplied) cable length away from the router.

I get 100% in the three rooms adjoining the Signal Box and probably 80% directly above it upstairs. The far reaches of the house are still low signal.

As most of my calls are taken or made in the study, drawing room or kitchen (where there's 100%) it's perfect.

Good work.

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Dodsy said:

From the EE website

When you use the Signal Box it will use some of your of your home broadband allowance. To give you a guide: a 20 minute call will use around 9MB. For an average household we predict the Signal Box will use around 500MB a month, but it depends how many calls you make and messages you send

If you change your home broadband supplier, router or move house then the Signal Box will stop working and the green light will flash quickly. You'll need to call customers services to get it re-activated. This is just security feature to help us prevent fraud.

That's handy info, thanks. I'm about to change my router for a Home Hub 5 as I'm switching to super fast broadband/infinity thing.

My EE Signal Box is brilliant. Works superbly and has made a massive difference to how we communicate.... I use the mobile for every call now and it's 100% reliable. The Vodafone thing previously was rubbish - very unstable.

Do you happen to know what the number is to re-register the Signal Box? There seem to be so many numbers!

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Pints said:

To activate your Signal Box you'll need to call Customer Services.

If you’re an Orange customer call 0800 079 0275
If you’re a T-mobile customer call 0800 956 3146
If you’re an EE customer call 0800 956 6141

Thanks very much.... Really appreciate it.

AZ...... EE do not offer the box to anything other than business customers. So I dropped a nice email to the CEO of EE explaining that signal was rubbish and that I was a non exec of several media companies and spent much of my time working from home. I asked how I could acquire the box. He sent me one. Immediately. And I had a follow up call from his office to see if all was ok.

It might be worth a similar note to the CEO of O2. It's only an email and you might get lucky.

I don't know how the 02 box compares... The EE one is brilliant, the Vodafone one, rubbish. Also worth adding that the range isn't huge - so you need to be in a roughly 3 room radius of the box. Therefore siting it is important - particularly if you live in a palatial gaff mate!

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EE told me 'business customers only'.

So it's clearly not a consistent approach.

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I used to have a Vodafone Sure Signal thing. Hopeless. Constantly dropping in and out.

I now have the EE Signal Box. 100% reliable - very happy with it.

As EE are not a 100% coverage company (in my neck of the woods there's zero EE) I'm not sure why they don't give these to customers rather than having them have to beg for them!

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Bikerjon said:

Interesting reading the mixed reports on the suresignal units as thats been my experience too. Some people say they're perfect, others say they keep dropping out/disconnecting and then take ages to reconnect. I'm actually looking at EE too and the main advantage of the repeater is that it's plug and play, doesn't require handset registration or consume broadband bandwidth.

If you get one, please do post up the results.....

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Dodsy said:

Looking at the EE signal booster its business users only, if you are a home user I dont think they'll let you have one

They will if you beg.... which is what I did.

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My signal box was free - I wrote an email to the CEO of EE saying that I needed one, and I received one.

Not had a problem with it and I get from zero bars previously to 100% signal when I'm within 2 rooms from it. Totally reliable.

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I wonder why EE won't sell them?

I would have happily paid for mine.