I bought this a couple of years ago, and it works great for us. In my house we have a finished basement, and of course there was no coverage there, and weak coverage in the rest of the house. With the antenna in the attic and the repeater in the basement, everyone gets great coverage everywhere in the house. And it works my AT&T plus my friends phones, who have T-Mobile and Verizon.
Last years marginally successful technology + Cheesy degrading video x Wifi Speed Spray = Humid Congo Phone sex. The numbers don't lie.
Seriously, that girl needs to get some self integrity.
The booster is damned expensive. I guess it works for some, but $400 plus another $100 for an upgraded antennae? Just use a carrier with better service.
The booster is damned expensive. I guess it works for some, but $400 plus another $100 for an upgraded antennae? Just use a carrier with better service.
Assuming it's the carrier's fault. I don't like AT&T, but for my case, it isn't really their fault, it's mostly the metal-clad building. Sprint and VZW only do marginally better (they use the same tower for me), so I would still need this booster for their phones. Other areas, odd terrain or area foliage doesn't help, they can't necessarily cover every dip in a valley. If you can get the exterior antenna above the terrain and foliage, then this should really help.
And that's the list price, it's easy to get it for less than $300. An antenna upgrade isn't always necessary, I do fine with the stock one.
I got one of these for about $260 off of Amazon a few weeks ago (they've raised the price to $292 right now).
It took the T-Mobile signal in my house from zero bars and no connection at all to 4 full bars (max on my Nexus One phone) and excellent service in just about the entire house. It also boosted the signal for my AT&T iPhone from spotty in some areas of the house to again, 5 full bars everywhere in the house.
I was a little irked at T-Mobile service in my neighborhood, but it's partly my brick and stucco (wire cage) house design.
At any rate, this will only help you, as others point out, if you can get a signal at whereever the antenna is placed. On my roof, I get a very strong signal, so I just taped the antenna with electrical tape to my HDTV antenna and dropped the cable along the same route as the TV. Very easy, very quick.
Highly recommended if you can get a signal outside, but not inside your home.
And for pete's sake, who pays retail suggested prices...use Amazon folks. LOL
To those of you who wrote they're against microcell/repeater technology on some altruistic or fundamental principle, I really think you guys miss the point. It's fine and dandy to hold the cellular companies to task about their poor coverage, but that ain't gonna change things for those of us who live with the problems every day.
For example. I work from home, and I require cellular coverage in my basement to get my job done. Getting another landline is expensive and inconvenient... so buying a repeater like the WiEx is actually cheaper for me in the long run! My company wouldn't pay for it, so either I buy it myself or I can't do my job. Pretty easy solution: I buy it myself or else get fired.
I own one of these WiEx units, and have used it for about six months now. It's not bad. It's not a panacea either, though. I had to rent a very long ladder (40') to mount the antenna near the top of my house, and I had to buy a longer 50' RG-6 coaxial cable to reach my basement. But at least I have coverage now. When installing, you have to make very sure all the connections are very tight or your coverage will be spotty at best. Before installing I had 0 bars on my iPhone and Blackberry in the basement and 3 to 4 bars at the top of my house. Now I have 5 bars showing, sound quality is good and 3G performance is good too.
Last thing. This unit doesn't cover ANYWHERE NEAR 2,500 square feet. The specs are likely if you have no walls or floors in your house... not likely. I am lucky it just covers the area of my small office, about 75 square feet, and a bit more. When I go to the next room, coverage drops, and two rooms away I can't make calls again.
Overall I'm happy I bought a repeater. Knowing what I know now, I might spend a few hundred dollars MORE and get a more professional model which actually does provide coverage for my whole house. The price goes up pretty quickly once you start down that route, so the WiEx isn't bad value for the money. It works and is easy to use. Since I bought it: one day when I move, I'm taking the unit with me.
As for the video... what can I say, Khara is very hot!!
I choose to live in beautiful if not well wired locations. As such I do not have 3G coverage and in fact have limited to no cell service.
Canada - My cabin in Canada (located North of Buckhorn, Ontario) had one to no bars on Rogers and the only way I could take or make cell phone calls (on my US iPhone) was to walk outside on the deck and with luck it might work. Well it gets cold here in Canada (-40 is no unheard of in the winter). So last year I installed a 510 unit and it works fantastically! I have 4 or 5 bars inside the cabin now. The KEY to installing one of these and getting them to work is to following the mounting instructions carefully - making sure to separate (both vertically and horizontally) the receiver from the antenna by at least 20 feet (prevents feedback). Also ALWAYS test the location of the antenna before final installation (I see folks have spent all the time and effort to set it up only to find that it doesn't work well - run the wires through open windows and test until you find the best signal improvement). One trick that I used to get more height for the antenna was to put the bottom end into the flared end of a 1" PVC pipe (it fits perfectly and I got an extra 4 feet of height above the roofline. I did this for both locations).
US - My house is in west Marin, California out near Point Reyes National Seashore. AT&T maps show that I have no coverage, but I actually got about 1 bar (Edge service) and again had to go outside to make or receive calls. About 2 months ago (after my success in Canada) I purchased a second unit for this house. Both homes have metal roofs so that was a part of the problem in both cases. Again once installed with the main unit in the basement and the antenna installed about 5 feef from the chimney on the roof, I have 4-5 bars inside the house and can now make and receive calls easily. My guests on other networks can all also use their cell phones in the house.
I'm not affiliated with this company in any way and purchased both my units on Amazon. I also purchased extra mounting clips (the black plastic screw on, slip clip that holds the antenna in place) on Amazon.
That's silly because it totally lacks perspective.
The watt or so that the repeater might be emitting is about a thousandth of what a microwave oven can sink into food. A microwave is allowed to leak more radiation power than the repeater emits through the indoor antenna.
How do you know that? I was not aware that there was fairly clear, scientific consensu about the issue of microwave radiation from cell towers and phones. Is there? Please post links to easy to read sources if you've got them. This was my concern too, especially with a 6-year old in the house. My limited understanding is that a microwave oven is shielded. Isn't the purpose of a mini-cell tower in your home to spread an unfettered signal throughout the home? I get the general consensus that wi-fi waves are no more harmful than your FM Radio (does anyone have one of those anymore?), but I'm not sold on the "safety" of cell phones and cell phone radiation. I might use a microwave once a day for no more than 3 minutes. I spend 50 times that on my cell phone and usually have it in my pocket the rest of the time. Does anyone really know how safe that is? I'm not an alarmist or fear monger-er by any stretch. Just wondering what we can really say authoritatively about this issue today.
Please enlighten if you've got more definitive info on this. I'm surprised that AppleInsider never mentioned this point too. It would behoove the author to add that in the followup or revise the existing article.
How do you know that? I was not aware that there was fairly clear, scientific consensu about the issue of microwave radiation from cell towers and phones. Is there? Please post links to easy to read sources if you've got them. This was my concern too, especially with a 6-year old in the house. My limited understanding is that a microwave oven is shielded. Isn't the purpose of a mini-cell tower in your home to spread an unfettered signal throughout the home? I get the general consensus that wi-fi waves are no more harmful than your FM Radio (does anyone have one of those anymore?), but I'm not sold on the "safety" of cell phones and cell phone radiation. I might use a microwave once a day for no more than 3 minutes. I spend 50 times that on my cell phone and usually have it in my pocket the rest of the time. Does anyone really know how safe that is? I'm not an alarmist or fear monger-er by any stretch. Just wondering what we can really say authoritatively about this issue today.
Please enlighten if you've got more definitive info on this. I'm surprised that AppleInsider never mentioned this point too. It would behoove the author to add that in the followup or revise the existing article.
Microwaves are shielded, but they can still leak, they're allowed to leak a few watts of power last I heard. The current cellular standards don't allow more than a watt of power transmission, which is about a quarter that of older standards.
GSM is a 20 year old standard, and there were 2-way radios since WWII, those had transmitters on the unit or on a luggable box. That should be more than enough time to find clearly whether or not a low dose non-ionizing radiation is harmful.
When it comes down to it though, if you're worried about cell, then you need to be worried about your WiFi access point, Bluetooth and being within a few miles from any radio or TV transmitter. We've had TV transmitters in the same general range of frequencies as cell phones for several decades. Those towers emit tens of thousands of watts of radiated power, and have been operating for half a century without evidence of danger. If it was a problem, we should have seen an epidemic long ago.
Microwaves are shielded, but they can still leak, they're allowed to leak a few watts of power last I heard. The current cellular standards don't allow more than a watt of power transmission, which is about a quarter that of older standards.
GSM is a 20 year old standard, and there were 2-way radios since WWII, those had transmitters on the unit or on a luggable box. That should be more than enough time to find clearly whether or not a low dose non-ionizing radiation is harmful.
When it comes down to it though, if you're worried about cell, then you need to be worried about your WiFi access point, Bluetooth and being within a few miles from any radio or TV transmitter. We've had TV transmitters in the same general range of frequencies as cell phones for several decades. Those towers emit tens of thousands of watts of radiated power, and have been operating for half a century without evidence of danger. If it was a problem, we should have seen an epidemic long ago.
Okay. Fair enough. Reasonable argument. How do we know that Cancer rates today are not in part affected by all of this? Again, I don't mean to sound rhetorical, but how do we know this? How do we judge something a reasonable risk and what's the math on putting a mini-cell tower in the home that radiates less than a microwave, but does so 24/7?... Is there a place where laymen and women can check all of this out?
Okay. Fair enough. Reasonable argument. How do we know that Cancer rates today are not in part affected by all of this? Again, I don't mean to sound rhetorical, but how do we know this? How do we judge something a reasonable risk and what's the math on putting a mini-cell tower in the home that radiates less than a microwave, but does so 24/7?... Is there a place where laymen and women can check all of this out?
I don't know where to point you. It seems like there should be a good place to go, but I haven't seen one yet. I mostly listen to Science Friday and Quirks and Quarks radio shows, they don't cover any issue too deeply, but the guests do at least explain how they arrive at their conclusions. They might have a segment on cell phones.
My thoughts exactly. We are paying enough for service, why should we pay anymore? Fix the damn problem AT&T!
Oh and I should add, yeah San Francisco is the worst! I will get full bars and full 3G and calls drop like mad!
I was recently in Warner Robins Georgia. While it is not exactly huge, it is bigger than you may imagine, and has a large military base. The intern I had along uses Verizon and there was not a single place in town, or on base, where he did not have either full reception, or one bar under full. Everything worked fine.
My iPhone? I had to walk around like a water diviner looking for reception. In one on-base café, my phone went from full bars-3G to nothing, back to one bar with Edge, and then 2 bars with some sort of a colored dot for network type. All this is going on while sitting in the same seat!
Other places in town, full bars meant nothing; 1 call out of 3 would drop.
Meridian MS, the same thing. This time I had a man along who had Sprint and it worked well all over the base and all over town. Not so AT&T. July 14th is when my contract expires. July 15 is when I shut my AT&T service down.
Comments
There's always this stuff.
Last years marginally successful technology + Cheesy degrading video x Wifi Speed Spray = Humid Congo Phone sex. The numbers don't lie.
Seriously, that girl needs to get some self integrity.
The booster is damned expensive. I guess it works for some, but $400 plus another $100 for an upgraded antennae? Just use a carrier with better service.
Seriously, that girl needs to get some self integrity.
And "self-integrity" would be... what, exactly?
I mean you do know what integrity means, right? And what's the point of attaching the word "self" to it? Emphasis?
Please don't make up terms, mmmkay?
I'm just pulling your leg, dude. I do things like that all the time too.
But yeah, she seems to degrade herself quite a bit. If she didn't seem so arrogant, it would totally work for me.
Time warp?
This video is from a year ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxUQ17CvRRs
I've been happily using my ZY-510 for more than a year. Solved the problem for me, as it did for Dan, tonton and docmac.
The booster is damned expensive. I guess it works for some, but $400 plus another $100 for an upgraded antennae? Just use a carrier with better service.
Assuming it's the carrier's fault. I don't like AT&T, but for my case, it isn't really their fault, it's mostly the metal-clad building. Sprint and VZW only do marginally better (they use the same tower for me), so I would still need this booster for their phones. Other areas, odd terrain or area foliage doesn't help, they can't necessarily cover every dip in a valley. If you can get the exterior antenna above the terrain and foliage, then this should really help.
And that's the list price, it's easy to get it for less than $300. An antenna upgrade isn't always necessary, I do fine with the stock one.
It took the T-Mobile signal in my house from zero bars and no connection at all to 4 full bars (max on my Nexus One phone) and excellent service in just about the entire house. It also boosted the signal for my AT&T iPhone from spotty in some areas of the house to again, 5 full bars everywhere in the house.
I was a little irked at T-Mobile service in my neighborhood, but it's partly my brick and stucco (wire cage) house design.
At any rate, this will only help you, as others point out, if you can get a signal at whereever the antenna is placed. On my roof, I get a very strong signal, so I just taped the antenna with electrical tape to my HDTV antenna and dropped the cable along the same route as the TV. Very easy, very quick.
Highly recommended if you can get a signal outside, but not inside your home.
And for pete's sake, who pays retail suggested prices...use Amazon folks. LOL
For example. I work from home, and I require cellular coverage in my basement to get my job done. Getting another landline is expensive and inconvenient... so buying a repeater like the WiEx is actually cheaper for me in the long run! My company wouldn't pay for it, so either I buy it myself or I can't do my job. Pretty easy solution: I buy it myself or else get fired.
I own one of these WiEx units, and have used it for about six months now. It's not bad. It's not a panacea either, though. I had to rent a very long ladder (40') to mount the antenna near the top of my house, and I had to buy a longer 50' RG-6 coaxial cable to reach my basement. But at least I have coverage now. When installing, you have to make very sure all the connections are very tight or your coverage will be spotty at best. Before installing I had 0 bars on my iPhone and Blackberry in the basement and 3 to 4 bars at the top of my house. Now I have 5 bars showing, sound quality is good and 3G performance is good too.
Last thing. This unit doesn't cover ANYWHERE NEAR 2,500 square feet. The specs are likely if you have no walls or floors in your house... not likely. I am lucky it just covers the area of my small office, about 75 square feet, and a bit more. When I go to the next room, coverage drops, and two rooms away I can't make calls again.
Overall I'm happy I bought a repeater. Knowing what I know now, I might spend a few hundred dollars MORE and get a more professional model which actually does provide coverage for my whole house. The price goes up pretty quickly once you start down that route, so the WiEx isn't bad value for the money. It works and is easy to use. Since I bought it: one day when I move, I'm taking the unit with me.
As for the video... what can I say, Khara is very hot!!
Canada - My cabin in Canada (located North of Buckhorn, Ontario) had one to no bars on Rogers and the only way I could take or make cell phone calls (on my US iPhone) was to walk outside on the deck and with luck it might work. Well it gets cold here in Canada (-40 is no unheard of in the winter). So last year I installed a 510 unit and it works fantastically! I have 4 or 5 bars inside the cabin now. The KEY to installing one of these and getting them to work is to following the mounting instructions carefully - making sure to separate (both vertically and horizontally) the receiver from the antenna by at least 20 feet (prevents feedback). Also ALWAYS test the location of the antenna before final installation (I see folks have spent all the time and effort to set it up only to find that it doesn't work well - run the wires through open windows and test until you find the best signal improvement). One trick that I used to get more height for the antenna was to put the bottom end into the flared end of a 1" PVC pipe (it fits perfectly and I got an extra 4 feet of height above the roofline. I did this for both locations).
US - My house is in west Marin, California out near Point Reyes National Seashore. AT&T maps show that I have no coverage, but I actually got about 1 bar (Edge service) and again had to go outside to make or receive calls. About 2 months ago (after my success in Canada) I purchased a second unit for this house. Both homes have metal roofs so that was a part of the problem in both cases. Again once installed with the main unit in the basement and the antenna installed about 5 feef from the chimney on the roof, I have 4-5 bars inside the house and can now make and receive calls easily. My guests on other networks can all also use their cell phones in the house.
I'm not affiliated with this company in any way and purchased both my units on Amazon. I also purchased extra mounting clips (the black plastic screw on, slip clip that holds the antenna in place) on Amazon.
That's silly because it totally lacks perspective.
The watt or so that the repeater might be emitting is about a thousandth of what a microwave oven can sink into food. A microwave is allowed to leak more radiation power than the repeater emits through the indoor antenna.
How do you know that? I was not aware that there was fairly clear, scientific consensu about the issue of microwave radiation from cell towers and phones. Is there? Please post links to easy to read sources if you've got them. This was my concern too, especially with a 6-year old in the house. My limited understanding is that a microwave oven is shielded. Isn't the purpose of a mini-cell tower in your home to spread an unfettered signal throughout the home? I get the general consensus that wi-fi waves are no more harmful than your FM Radio (does anyone have one of those anymore?), but I'm not sold on the "safety" of cell phones and cell phone radiation. I might use a microwave once a day for no more than 3 minutes. I spend 50 times that on my cell phone and usually have it in my pocket the rest of the time. Does anyone really know how safe that is? I'm not an alarmist or fear monger-er by any stretch. Just wondering what we can really say authoritatively about this issue today.
Please enlighten if you've got more definitive info on this. I'm surprised that AppleInsider never mentioned this point too. It would behoove the author to add that in the followup or revise the existing article.
Thanks,
Mick
How do you know that? I was not aware that there was fairly clear, scientific consensu about the issue of microwave radiation from cell towers and phones. Is there? Please post links to easy to read sources if you've got them. This was my concern too, especially with a 6-year old in the house. My limited understanding is that a microwave oven is shielded. Isn't the purpose of a mini-cell tower in your home to spread an unfettered signal throughout the home? I get the general consensus that wi-fi waves are no more harmful than your FM Radio (does anyone have one of those anymore?), but I'm not sold on the "safety" of cell phones and cell phone radiation. I might use a microwave once a day for no more than 3 minutes. I spend 50 times that on my cell phone and usually have it in my pocket the rest of the time. Does anyone really know how safe that is? I'm not an alarmist or fear monger-er by any stretch. Just wondering what we can really say authoritatively about this issue today.
Please enlighten if you've got more definitive info on this. I'm surprised that AppleInsider never mentioned this point too. It would behoove the author to add that in the followup or revise the existing article.
Microwaves are shielded, but they can still leak, they're allowed to leak a few watts of power last I heard. The current cellular standards don't allow more than a watt of power transmission, which is about a quarter that of older standards.
GSM is a 20 year old standard, and there were 2-way radios since WWII, those had transmitters on the unit or on a luggable box. That should be more than enough time to find clearly whether or not a low dose non-ionizing radiation is harmful.
When it comes down to it though, if you're worried about cell, then you need to be worried about your WiFi access point, Bluetooth and being within a few miles from any radio or TV transmitter. We've had TV transmitters in the same general range of frequencies as cell phones for several decades. Those towers emit tens of thousands of watts of radiated power, and have been operating for half a century without evidence of danger. If it was a problem, we should have seen an epidemic long ago.
Microwaves are shielded, but they can still leak, they're allowed to leak a few watts of power last I heard. The current cellular standards don't allow more than a watt of power transmission, which is about a quarter that of older standards.
GSM is a 20 year old standard, and there were 2-way radios since WWII, those had transmitters on the unit or on a luggable box. That should be more than enough time to find clearly whether or not a low dose non-ionizing radiation is harmful.
When it comes down to it though, if you're worried about cell, then you need to be worried about your WiFi access point, Bluetooth and being within a few miles from any radio or TV transmitter. We've had TV transmitters in the same general range of frequencies as cell phones for several decades. Those towers emit tens of thousands of watts of radiated power, and have been operating for half a century without evidence of danger. If it was a problem, we should have seen an epidemic long ago.
Okay. Fair enough. Reasonable argument. How do we know that Cancer rates today are not in part affected by all of this? Again, I don't mean to sound rhetorical, but how do we know this? How do we judge something a reasonable risk and what's the math on putting a mini-cell tower in the home that radiates less than a microwave, but does so 24/7?... Is there a place where laymen and women can check all of this out?
Thanks,
Mick
Okay. Fair enough. Reasonable argument. How do we know that Cancer rates today are not in part affected by all of this? Again, I don't mean to sound rhetorical, but how do we know this? How do we judge something a reasonable risk and what's the math on putting a mini-cell tower in the home that radiates less than a microwave, but does so 24/7?... Is there a place where laymen and women can check all of this out?
I don't know where to point you. It seems like there should be a good place to go, but I haven't seen one yet. I mostly listen to Science Friday and Quirks and Quarks radio shows, they don't cover any issue too deeply, but the guests do at least explain how they arrive at their conclusions. They might have a segment on cell phones.
My thoughts exactly. We are paying enough for service, why should we pay anymore? Fix the damn problem AT&T!
Oh and I should add, yeah San Francisco is the worst! I will get full bars and full 3G and calls drop like mad!
I was recently in Warner Robins Georgia. While it is not exactly huge, it is bigger than you may imagine, and has a large military base. The intern I had along uses Verizon and there was not a single place in town, or on base, where he did not have either full reception, or one bar under full. Everything worked fine.
My iPhone? I had to walk around like a water diviner looking for reception.
Other places in town, full bars meant nothing; 1 call out of 3 would drop.
Meridian MS, the same thing. This time I had a man along who had Sprint and it worked well all over the base and all over town. Not so AT&T. July 14th is when my contract expires. July 15 is when I shut my AT&T service down.