Vodafone and me have had a big falling out.

Here in the boondocks there’s pretty rubbish mobile signal so we’ve been using a vodafone sure signal box for a number of years (femtocell using our broadband for backhaul). It’s been OK more or less, but once a year at least when there’s a problem (and it’s ALWAYS at vodafone’s end), they pass the buck, blame faulty hardware, faff about, Tech Support (misnomer!) make customers reset and reboot their boxes to no benefit and generally flounder about until their single gifted employee plugs the Flux Capacitor back in again and we’re up and running once more.

It’s been 18 days now with no mobile signal. Bunch of *****

So thinking of going to Orange and using their signal boost system on our android phones to use our wifi directly as the backhaul rather than going via a femtocell box.

Has anyone any experience of Signal Boost on an android phone, even better a Nexus. Does it work? Is it reliable?

***** (5!) = swear filter avoidance

*reported*

Actually, I’ve seen these in clients’ houses in the stix. How do they work exactly?

***** you brizzlechops!

Harrrumph.

How do they work exactly?

Leprechaun magic. or voodoo.
But Im going with leprechaun magic.

I’ve got an ee signal box which works a treat – only 5 mins or so downtime in the last 4 months. I had a cel-fi for a while and that also gave a great signal and is ideal if you don’t have broadband.

Getting a signal box out of ee was pretty hard work though – that’s another story though.

vodafone sure signal here, just complain – right to ceo@vodafone.co.uk or similar I did and got £120 credit when first got my sure signal.

Just download BT SmartTalk app so you can use your mobile on wifi when vodafone on the blink.

We have a Sure Signal box – 3 Vodafone phones go through it (no VF coverage here at all) – it works well most of the time – the only problem we occasionally have is that if someone is streaming something on the laptop then the call quality on the VF mobile drops. But then our broadband speed is v poor.

My daughters both have Orange phones with Signal Boost as there is no Orange coverage here either. It works OK although I get the impression there is a limited choice of handsets that support it compared to when I looked 12 months ago? It sometimes takes a while to establish a connection via signal boost – say 5-10 minutes after it connects to the wi-fi. This is only a problem if you take the phone into one part of the house where the wi-fi signal is weak or when you’ve just entered the house.

BT SmartTalk

*starts thrashing google*

is the Nexus 4 EE/4G compatible?

I’ve got a Suresignal if it drops the signal a simple restart sorts mine, been in about 2 years and not had any long term issues. Only time there was Vodafone warned me there was going to be an outage.

I have no phone signal in the house & use orangeEE signal boost, any texts come through intermittendly as do phone calls, when you pick up the phone, either making or receiving calls it sometimes takes a few hello’s to connect.

So yes it works sort of, & you don’t need anything else

I guess the BT App won’t let you receive calls on your mobile though.

v good point ATP

SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW THEY WORK FFS!

SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW THEY WORK FFS!

*hrmugh oo ughh*

Have you not been banned yet?

just like a mobile phone mast

very low power (henco femto) cellular network, which uses your broadband line as the data connection to interface with your network operators main data transfer network.

i.e your phone communicates with the device, which then uses your bb to get into the network of your provider

Have you not been banned yet?

one more peep out of you McFloor and I take away your standing box.

@properbikeco Ah I see. Thank you. 🙂

If you can get a signal outside the house, then if I were in your position I’d install a mobile repeater. Technically they’re illegal but no one cares or will ever detect it. You stick an aerial outside pointing toward the nearest mast and another aerial in the house where you want the coverage. You can buy them from the US and poss in the UK (legal to sell, just not to use).

EDIT: They’re legal to use in the US, hence very popular and cheapish.

cheers flaps.

Have a look at this thread on Digital Spy Forum, it should tell you all you’d ever need to know about the EE Signal Box (getting hold of one may be a different matter though)

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1769995

I was going to ring EE about this, this morning.

I get bugger all signal out here in the sticks. I tried Orange sure signal but it kept dropping signal in the middle of calls and generally doing it’s best to wind me up. I’ve resorted to wrapping my head in tinfoil and standing with on the coffee table to get a signal.

I’ve just spoken to EE re their Signal Box and they tell me it’s only currently available to customers with poor signal due to network optimization, they can’t even sell me one. Useless!!

Bit pricier than I expected: http://mobilerepeater.co.uk/shop/home.php

You can pick them up in the US for about half those prices, just need to careful to make sure the frequency bands match up with the UK.

first off I shall send off for a 3 sim and an orange one and see what coverage is like for them without additional hardware.

vodafone just seem to have given up on investing in their infrastructure. The signal here hasnt improved for 5 years and at paddington you still cant get any data bandwidth in rush hour and it’s been like that for over 7 years! It’s not like it isnt something they can predict.

I think EE has limited appeal to me. I dont need downlaod speed while out and about, I need coverage. It would be great as a high speed broadband for the house because our copper line is rubbish, but just as we have bad BB in the sticks they also wont invest in improving mobile broadband out here too, just where it would be of such value.

Three and Orange share a network so it’ll be quite similar to say the least.

I’ve got a signal amplifier that you can have for the postage. I went from that to Suresignal as the signal outside the house was pretty ropey.

The box is a MR Mini GSM 900 from http://mobilerepeater.co.uk/
I bought it in 2009.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they are having ‘serious’ problems with these as Vodaphone screwed the company that made the microchip in them to the point that they collapsed and got bought out by a US company who fired all the engineers. So in the event of a bug, there is literally no one left in the company (280 employees down to < 35 atm) that designed the chip to troubleshoot issues, let alone fix them.

Sounds like a case of what comes around, goes around.

Also its a little more complex than just plugging in a Femtocell for them (not you) as the you also need all the other infrastructure to cope with the massive increase in data over there network.

They are cool, but all the investment is in LTE (4G) rather than 3G.

Just bought an EE Sgnal Box. They had no issues selling me one, despite being in a high signal area, once I told them I get no signal on the ground floor. Cost me £95 delivered and worth every penny. No longer do I need to leave the phone on the top floor of a 3 story house in order to receive calls. It’s Nokia kit and excellent quality. If you have an iPhone it plays a high-low-high tone through the earpiece when it switches to the Femtocell.

Notes:

It’s supplied in open mode and won’t be locked down to your choice of users until September (possibly never). If you have close neighbours you’ll provide a signal for them too, routed over your network. In theory, since they’ll be connected via a VPN you’ll be protected from anything dodgy they decide to do on the 3G signal.

Said neighbours likely to be moderately pissed off when their excellent signal disappears in six months time.

You shouldn’t place it right next to your wireless router due to interference issues (2.1GHz vs 2.4GHz). It comes with a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnng network cable if you haven’t got your own wiring, or you could use a power line adapter.

Orange are less enthusiastic than T Mobile at sending them out, but you could just register a business account which entitles you to one straight away. Signal Boost on the mobile works ok but isn’t brilliant, limited compatibility, and no support for other people if they need to make a call.

Voda Sure Signal is basically a mini phone mast in your house.

Orange Signal Boost routes calls via your wifi connection rather than over the standard mobile phone network – imagine a seamless version of Skype that works. Signal Boost is just a brand name for UMA.

I’ve got a phone with Orange Signal Boost. It works great when you live somewhere with a ropey mobile signal, and so long as you can access wifi, you can access a phone signal. You do tend to drop calls when you move out of wifi areas regardless of local Orange signal (ie, if I’m connected to wifi and have signal boost on, and then wander out of range of the wifi, the call will drop even if the Orange signal is strong locally).

The cons are that there’s a very limited range of SignalBoost phones about compared with 18 months ago when I got my Galaxy S2 – to be honest, it looks like Orange are phasing it out to me.

To be honest, I’d be inclined to use a land line – it seems most broadband providers are working hard to force you to have one…

It’s Day 21 in the Stoner Jungle and we finally have a Sure Signal connection at 01:06 this morning.

Very frustrating that there’s no local diagnostic you can run, or even flash the bios. You have to hope that any interrogation of the box for faults or tests can be done remotely by vodafone, but Id be surprised if they do more than turn their own end of then on again.

interesting tale that richc. The annoying thing about moving away from vodafone though is that from all I can read on all other operator websites is their roaming set ups are prehistoric compared to vodafone.

Three and Orange share a network so it’ll be quite similar to say the least.

They used to, but that ceased when T-Mo and Orange became EE … oh and because Three told them to shove it!