Help finding a booster/Repeater

[NewfieDan]

I am trying to find a booster for my cabin, looking online at the frequency for 3g and lte. Most of the cheaper boosters I can find in a dual band are 850/1700 or 850/1900. I want voice and LTE service. The signal on the roof of the cabin is 4-5 bars lte on my phone but 1 bar 4g (hspa) or no service inside, so Im not worried about a poor signal to be boosted, just what to buy to repeat the proper frequencies. Im in Newfoundland and I think telus piggy backs off bell mobility towers here (I may be wrong on that but thats what Ive been told) I dont know if that would make a difference to the frequencies used.

Thanks Dan

[Nighthawk]

3G will be your safest bet. There are a number of different frequencies / bands for LTE that may be in use so it's hard to pinpoint which one you have there. 850 / 1900 is pretty standard for 3G. LTE could be 1700/2100 being the most common one, but 700, 2100 or 2600 could be there also. There are three versions of 700 that could be in use as well. (Bands 13, 17 & 29) I'm not sure if 1700/2100 will be available in all areas of Newfoundland at this point. Unless you're in St. John's or Corner Brook, the frequencies available will be limited. Many areas appear to have a variant of 700 in use.

[NewfieDan]

Thanks for info, my cabin is about 100km from st. johns. If I buy an 850/1700 and hoping lte is on 1700 here, will I get voice and lte? I was reading somewhere about 2 frequencies being used (uplink and downlink) or would 850 work for 3g and 1700 work for lte?

[Nighthawk]

3G would be 850 & 1900. LTE if 1700, would require 2100 also but not many towers seem to have that there unless in St. John's. A lot seem to have 700 though but again there are three variants of that Bell is using and no way to tell which one. I suspect LTE will be hard to get a booster for based on the frequencies in use there.

[NewfieDan]

If LTE is on 1700/2100, will these frequencies work, "uplink:824-849MHz/1710-1755MHz,Downlink 869-894MHz/2100-2155MHz" ? This is the information of a booster I was looking at. Is the 3g uplink/downlink 850/1900? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to determine everything before I waste any money on something that won't work.

[Nighthawk]

From the cell tower map, the only places that have 1700/2100/2600 are in St. John's itself. Outside of it most towers show only 700.

For the uplink/downlink frequencies you posted, You might get it to work on LTE but only if those frequencies are in the area, which is doubtful unless Bell has really upgraded their towers recently. It likely won't work well for 3G though. Missing 1900.

[NFtoBC]

This link shows which frequencies are deployed by Canadian carriers, though likely many have increased teh number of frequencies they use since published.

This one shows locations of towers, and the radio frequencies on each. Click on the tower icon in the area of your cabin to learn what frequencies are deployed.

3G does not use paired frequencies, but LTE (4G) uses paired 1700 / 2100

[NewfieDan]

Thanks, just looked at where the cabin is and I'm between 2 bell towers showing 700/850/1900. So in assumption, I'll need a tri band booster with those 3 frequencies to have full function of voice and lte.

[NFtoBC]

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@NewfieDan wrote:
Thanks, just looked at where the cabin is and I'm between 2 bell towers showing 700/850/1900. So in assumption, I'll need a tri band booster with those 3 frequencies to have full function of voice and lte.

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I expect the 850 & 1900 are 3G frequencies, and the 700 *MIGHT* be LTE.

...supports TELUS frequencies. TELUS deploys HSPA (3G): 850/1900 MHz; LTE: 700/1700/2100 MHz

[BillTelusCust]

I don't have more to contribute but please advise how it goes, will be interesting to see how it works for you, hopefully it is going to be beneficial, and nice to see others giving advice.

[NewfieDan]

I will update when I receive and install the booster I ordered. Its a triband 700(band 12/17)/850/1900 booster. Its marked as an AT&T booster but from what I've researched it seams to be the same specs.

[BillTelusCust]

Thank you. I am sure you'll find it quite nice to have a decent setup.  My mother has a place which has coverage only in certain parts of the home, but fortunately, that was able to be addressed with wi fi calling as she has robust internet available.

[NewfieDan]

Ya, hoping this will help someone whos looking for a solution. Remote locations, like my cabin, theres no options for internet (except via cellular network) and I'm an android user which telus still doesnt support wifi calling on anyways (supposedly being worked on sense the removal of telus extent, which worked good until it was shut down).

[BillTelusCust]

I never had a great deal of luck with extend, nor did I have a lot need to use it. I actually don't get a lot of voice calls nowadays.  However, it appears that a booster is the right solution for your situation, so I hope and expect it will work well.

[NewfieDan · Accepted solution]

As an update, I finally received the booster kit a couple days ago and installed it today. Install was pretty easy, besides for mounting the antenna and running the cable, its basically plug and play. This is the kit I ordered: SolidRF SOHO Tri-Band Cell Phone Signal Booster AT&T T-Mobile for Home and Office and I ordered it from www.cellphonenuts.com. The kit complete with shipping was $199usd, it does ship from hong kong but it only took about a week and a half to recieve when shipped.

As for functionality, I now have full towers in most of the cabin (the range on this booster isnt really good but ok for a smaller space). I am getting lte but lte isn't true lte, its 4g but as with most of canada true lte is lte+ which isnt available by my cabin anyways.

I would recommend this product to anyone who has a small cabin where service is poor inside. Its the only booster I could find at this price point that I was able to boost 3g/lte.

[WestCoasterBC]

Thanks for the follow up and your experience with it @NewfieDan

[BillTelusCust]

Yes, thank you and hope you continue to be happy  with it.