How I brought my cellular signal from -100dBm to -53dBm at home

These seem to be for LTE.

I like this meter. Does it only measure HSPA? If it measures others too, can I install it on my phone? What is it called.

They also seem to be for LTE??

When I complained to T-Mobile that my cell signal was around -105 dBm, they sent me the signal booster, which recently died in all the power outages we've been having, so they sent me a second signal booster and what people seem to call a femtocell that connects to the router.

They all seem to be labeled "LTE":

I think it measures everything found in the USA. You can refer to this thread for the tools used. From: Stijn De Jong Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android,misc.phone.mobile.iphone Subject: Which app do you use to scan/debug GSM/CDMA cellular tower signal strength? Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 01:52:24 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID:

If you put that message id into this site, it should pop up:

You can find the entire thread here:

Which reports this URL which contains scores of screenshots and recommendations for both Android and iOS devices.

The goal is for each user to improve upon the tribal knowledge of all.

My mistake.

That was the wrong search url as it was for alt.home.repair:

This is the right url for Android:

While we're at it, this is the right url for iPad:

And this is the right url for iphones:

You'll find probably a hundred very detailed screenshots in that thread. For example, here are the dramatic results of just one experiment!

Without the tools, it's hard to tell exactly which device is doing what:

I'm ignorant of what acronym should I be looking for?

I must confess that I'm not sure what the significance of your question about LTE is, but mostly because I'm pretty ignorant of the various acronyms (EDGE, HSPE, LTE, etc.) even though I see them on my phone at times.

All I know is I asked T-Mobile for better cellular signal (I don't really do data on the phone except on WiFi). They gave me these three devices.

They're all labeled "LTE" but I don't really know what to make of that since they all seem to give me better signal strength in different ways.

What I find most useful is that I went from -100dBm to -50dBm, which is a jump of about half a million times stronger signal.

Note that -50dBm is about as good as is humanly possible even if you were standing right in front of a cellular tower.

If someone can give me a quick rundown on what acronyms are important in this endeavor, I'd appreciate it.

Remember, I only asked for them to increase my "cellular signal". I didn't ask for LTE (and I don't use cellular data to any extent).

This survey, for example, at my house, says UMTS (whatever that means):

Yet, this survey, again in the same location, says HSPA (whatever that's telling me):

So does this survey in the same location:

And this one too:

Yet, this survey, same place, just says GSM/CDMA:

I admit I really don't understand what these acrynyms are trying to tell me since my own surveys shown above show an alphabet soup of acronyms at various times in my tests.

What should I be concluding from all these acrynyms at my one location?

Great.

I just searched on the subject in my list of posts (another advantage of off-line readers.) Then I looked for the day an date.

That sounds interesting too.

But from the post you referred me to, I found 4 that sound quite nice. However I'm like a duck, and I like most whatever I have imprinted on, so I'm startign with the one I looked at in this thread.

I'll try to do my share.

I've only installed network Cell Info Lite and it has more information that I can absorb. Phone and wifi. And it knows all about both sim acrds etc.

And it has an FAQ *and* an online manual. Most apps I see don' thave either. i have to guess at how they work.

On map, it has a red line that I t hought would point toward the tower, but it points** towards a strictly residential area. There are two cell towers right next to the supermarket I go to about 4 blocks away, I figured one was mine, but it is ignoring both of them. Sometime I will take the phone over there and see what it says.

**It was a long red line but the line got shorter and it added the image of a tower, and there might actually be one there now. There wasn't a few years ago It would only be 7 blocks from the one I know about. Is't that closer than need be? At any rate, I'll go over there and see. It's an apartment complex that might want extra money for permitting a tower.

Thanks. P.s, this was so much fun I may not wait til tomorrow to get a second one.

That works also. Especially since it was very recent, so everything is up to date.

The cost of freeware is finding a good one. If I had to recommend a single program, it would be the one you chose.

It reports more information than I understand, but what matters most is the signal strength coupled with the exact micro or femto tower you're using (bearing in mind all the neighbors have them also so you wouldn't know whose you're connecting to if you don't know the unique cell tower cellid.

The main confusion I have, especially since I don't do cellular data at home, is the functional practical significance of all these acronyms: EDGE

HSPA HSPA+

I only have one SIM card, so that's nice that it tells you what you need for both, especially if they use different carriers.

That whole online-database tower-map stuff is crowd-sourced data, which may or may not be accurate. It's all that the iOS users can do, so, it's certainly better than absolutely nothing, but if you have an Android phone, you can obtain the exact cell tower ID, which if you want to know where it is, and if it's a major tower (not someone's home femtocell like I have), then it will be on a map somewhere.

You have to be very careful about the open-source tower databases though because they don't locate the tower - they locate the *average* of all the cellphones that report that tower to the app developers.

Again, it's all that the iOS people have, but if you have an Android phone, you have the real tower id (which you can get the location from more reliably from carrier maps).

Bear in mind from the tower ID, in some cases, you can figure out exactly which sector antenna you're connected to! They have three sectors, alpha is north, beta is southeast, and delta is southwest. Each carrier uses a different system, but it's documented somewhere how to figure out which sector antenna you're connected to (if it is a sector antenna) just from the cell tower id.