Comment by zekyl314

6 hours ago

I was hoping this was a mini 5G cell tower that connected to the network, so you could have good 5G service inside.

8 comments

zekyl314

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macNchz  5 hours ago

Those do exist, they’re called cell signal boosters. Once upon a time, I believe, some American cell providers would give you one for free if you had bad signal at home, which mattered a lot more before phones all had wifi calling.

  • joecool1029  3 hours ago

    > Those do exist, they’re called cell signal boosters.

    No, those are different. They are describing a femtocell. I still have one site with a T-Mobile one. It basically VPN’s to T-Mobile’s network core through the cable ISP, uses GPS to check its location for licensed spectrum, and then broadcasts its own LTE signal. It does not boost/repeat the signal of a nearby tower, it runs its own.

  • andix  3 hours ago

    Do they work for 5G? I think just amplifying the signal (like 2g signal boosters did) would mess with a lot with all the fancy RF tricks that make 5G fast, stable, low-latency and quite low on package loss (5G has impressively low package loss on the IP layer).

    For most use cases WiFi should be the better solution. VoWiFi works well for calls. Should be enough for home and office use.

  • superxpro12  3 hours ago

    FWIW, MMS and SMS are still left in the dust in this situation, as I have this exact issue.

    • hocuspocus  24 minutes ago

      That shouldn't be the case. There's an extension to VoWiFi to support SMS over IP. With 2G and 3G going away it's not like your carrier has a choice anyway.

andix  3 hours ago

I think in the US there are even public 5G frequencies that can be used. In most of Europe you would need to buy an expensive license to do that.

Private 5G networks usually need internal eSIM cards, you can't just let public devices roam into the private 5G net.

Benefits of 5G over WiFi: much better roaming between APs, higher distances, and better congestion management if there are hundreds of devices connected to a cell.