Mobile phone boosters

_Chris__2

Has anyone here tried a mobile phone booster where the signal you received at home was very poor with any provider?

Do they work?

MattMattMattUK

_Chris__2 said:

Has anyone here tried a mobile phone booster where the signal you received at home was very poor with any provider?

Do they work?

It depends what you mean by mobile phone booster. If you mean those random things that get sold online that you plug in and they claim to randomly boost your signal then no, they do not. Providers used to offer Femtocells which were effectively small mobile masts that ran over your home broadband but all have now been discontinued. 

The best solution is to connect your phone to your home wifi and then enable wifi calling, which solves all poor signal issues. 

_Chris__2

I have the phone connected to the home wifi and on wifi calling, but still quite a few calls don't get through.

400ixl

Femocells that used to be provided by mobile providers are pretty much no longer a thing. They did work reasonably well. Those sticker ones you could buy were pretty much useless.

Neither are required any more as most mobile providers support VoLTE (calling over wifi) via your home broadband these days. You just need a half decent phone that supports it which most do).

Woho is your mobile operator and what phone do you have?

flaneurs_lobster

_Chris__2 said:

I have the phone connected to the home wifi and on wifi calling, but still quite a few calls don't get through.

That sometimes happens when the mobile signal is poor but not quite poor enough to trip the circuits to use Wi-fi calling. Some phones/carriers have a switch that will prioritise mobile over Wi-fi or vice versa.

Otherwise you might try switching to airplane mode and then manually turning on Wi-fi to force Wi-fi calling on - a pain if you forget to turn plane mode off before leaving the house.

Murmansk

400ixl said:

Neither are required any more as most mobile providers support VoLTE (calling over wifi) via your home broadband these days. You just need a half decent phone that supports it which most do).

My understanding is that VoLTE refers to calls over 4G not over wi-fi

400ixl

Sorry, fingers ahead of mind. Yes VoWIFI is the wifi equivalent

Neil49

_Chris__2 said:

I have the phone connected to the home wifi and on wifi calling, but still quite a few calls don't get through.

Some phones have the option with the WiFi calling settings to select whether to default to WiFi calling regardless of the mobile phone signal strength. 

Our O2 signal at home is poor so my phone is set to default to WiFi calling regardless of the O2 signal strength. Call reception is excellent. 

brewerdave

Neil49 said:

_Chris__2 said:

I have the phone connected to the home wifi and on wifi calling, but still quite a few calls don't get through.

Some phones have the option with the WiFi calling settings to select whether to default to WiFi calling regardless of the mobile phone signal strength. 

Our O2 signal at home is poor so my phone is set to default to WiFi calling regardless of the O2 signal strength. Call reception is excellent. 

Thanks for this ; We can make calls no problem over wifi but have noticed incoming messages left when we haven't received any calls. I'll have to delve into the settings menus to see whether its possible on our phones. Presumably you have to remember to switch it off when out and about ?

_Chris__2

400ixl said:

Femocells that used to be provided by mobile providers are pretty much no longer a thing. They did work reasonably well. Those sticker ones you could buy were pretty much useless.

Neither are required any more as most mobile providers support VoLTE (calling over wifi) via your home broadband these days. You just need a half decent phone that supports it which most do).

Woho is your mobile operator and what phone do you have?

Vodafone - Samsung A50

flaneurs_lobster

_Chris__2 said:

400ixl said:

Femocells that used to be provided by mobile providers are pretty much no longer a thing. They did work reasonably well. Those sticker ones you could buy were pretty much useless.

Neither are required any more as most mobile providers support VoLTE (calling over wifi) via your home broadband these days. You just need a half decent phone that supports it which most do).

Woho is your mobile operator and what phone do you have?

Vodafone - Samsung A50

Fine phone, getting on a bit, hasn't had a security update in a couple of years and stuck on Android 11. 

Might have more success with something a bit newer?