Do I Need a Cell Phone Signal Booster?

If you’re struggling with cell phone coverage in your home or vehicle, a cell phone booster might support a more solid connection. That can lead to fewer dropped calls and better data speeds. However, a weak signal isn’t the only culprit that can cause connection problems, so it’s understandable to ask yourself if you really need a cell phone booster.

Find out more about this solution and the signs that you might need it below.

What Is a Cell Phone Signal Booster? 

A signal booster is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a technology that boosts the cell signal coming into a space, amplifying it for better performance of any devices picking up that signal.

It’s not a device that creates cell signal. To work, the device needs at least a little signal coming in from a cell phone tower to amplify. However, if the signal you get from the closest tower is weak due to distance or because of obstacles such as landscape or buildings, a signal booster can help increase signal strength and make your cell connection more usable.  

5 Signs a Signal Booster Might Help 

Will you benefit from a cell phone signal booster in your home or even your car? Check out these five questions to give you an idea of where you stand with your cell phone signal.

1. Do you drop calls inside your home but nowhere else?

If you normally have a great connection and hardly lose calls when you’re out and about but you enter your door and problems start, this can be a sign that cell signal is weak in your residence.

A number of factors can cause this. The walls of your home might be robust enough to weaken the signal or your home might be in a location where a hill or another obstacle is cutting down on the signal that reaches you from the nearest tower.

Having to make all your phone calls from the front porch or the backyard is a clear sign of an issue. Stepping outdoors every time you want to connect with someone isn’t an ideal solution — especially when a signal booster could reduce these woes.

2. Is there a place in your home where the signal is better or worse than others?

Sometimes, you don’t have to go all the way outside to get a good signal. Maybe there’s a corner in the kitchen, an upstairs closet, or a guest bedroom where signal seems stronger than everywhere else. This can be a sign that cell signal is making it into your house but something is keeping it from distributing fully throughout the residence. 

It might be as simple as distance. If your house is on the very edge of cell tower coverage, one side could have better signal than the other. More likely, interior walls or other barriers are reducing signal in one part of your home. If you find yourself stepping into a certain room every time you want to download a new app, it may be time to address signal disparities across your residence. 

3. Is audio quality poor when you’re on the phone in certain areas in or around your residence?

You don’t have to drop calls to have a weak signal. If you’re wandering around your residence to find the best audio quality, repeating yourself, or getting a lot of noise on the line, it could be due to poor signal. This is especially true if you normally experience crystal-clear connections when you’re not at home or inside the house.

4. Do you get emails, texts, and other notifications in sudden onslaughts?

Have you ever left your home, driven a mile down the road, and had your cell phone blow up with notifications? You might think people just seem to know you’ve left home and are driving, but come to find out, many of those texts and emails were sent hours ago.

That’s a sign the signal in your home isn’t strong enough to support a steady connection powerful enough to upload and download data. What happens in this case is that the messages literally “sit” in the cloud, waiting for a chance to arrive at your cell phone. As soon as you move into an area with a strong enough connection, they all come flying in at once.

Obviously, this can be inconvenient. In the worst cases, it can impact your ability to adhere to work, family, or social obligations and even create safety concerns.

5. Do you experience issues with cell connection when driving?

Your home isn’t the only area that can experience a weak signal. Is there a stretch of road on your daily commute where calls drop out or your cell phone data is too weak to stream your driving Spotify playlist? That might mean you’re regularly driving through an area that’s too far away from cell towers to get a good signal. It could also mean there are obstacles blocking out some of the signals.

While a vehicle cell phone booster won’t create a signal where there is not one, it can boost whatever weak signal might be present as you travel to help stabilize the consistency of your connection. This is also true when you’re traveling longer distances, such as when you’re on vacation.

Other Issues to Rule Out 

Before you buy a cell phone booster to solve your connection problems, make sure you rule out a few other issues.

First, make sure that you get some signal. If your home is in a very remote location with a known desert of cell phone coverage, a signal booster won’t suddenly pour water on that metaphorical sand. 

You might also need to consider whether the carrier you’re using provides coverage in your area. Even in a coverage desert, there might be one provider with a cell tower near enough to make a connection — ensure that you’re with that provider.

Second, ensure your cell phone is working correctly. If you have an old or out-of-date device that simply doesn’t work well anymore, boosting the signal may not help. Typically, though, you would experience the same problems wherever you are if the phone is the issue, so this one is relatively easy to rule out.

Shop Cell Phone Boosters for Your Home 

After ruling out other issues and answering the questions above, you might realize that a cell phone booster is the right solution for you and your family. Shop the selection of home and office cell phone boosters at weBoost or read our guide to cell phone signal boosters to learn more before you shop and make the right choice for your needs.