Cell Boosting Kits Sold on Ebay

[Community Alumni]

Has anyone purchased an inexpensive cell boosting kit that are sold on Ebay? If so, are they any good, or they are just worthless junk? There are several of them ranging in price from $100 to $200.

weBoost (made by Wilson Antenna) offers a kit for $500 that has mostly good reviews but I can't justify the cost for the very few times we may need to use it, hence why I'm looking to get something cheaper.

The following link is for illustrative purposes:
Cell Phone Signal Booster



Moderator's Note: Changed URL link to shortcut. Using the full Ebay page link can sometimes cause unwanted characters to appear in Forum posts.

[pinesman]

I have a WeBoost on my house and a cheap ebay unit on my shop. I can not really tell much difference other than Weboost will work with any carrier. Most of the cheap ones on ebay are band/frequency specific so you will need to know what band your carrier uses. That probably causes a lot of the returned packages

[coolmom42]

Don't waste your money on the knock-offs. Either get the WeBoost or don't bother. Voice of experience.

I have one for my house (acquired after putting on a metal roof) and one for my car. Haven't needed one yet for the RV but probably will get one in the future. They work great.

[srt20]

agesilaus wrote:
Coverage maps

Looking at those maps I'd have to say that Verizon is best out west, and T-Mobile is second ATT has giant gaps. The western half of WY for example. That goes along with our experience, my wife had ATT and was often w/o coverage out west. I had it almost everywhere we went. She change to Visible which is what I have now. Out west in this case means the desert SW and mountain states excluding the left coast.

That map is not very accurate. I have Verizon and my bud has ATT and he had better service in western WY than I did. And it was fairly significant. We haven't been all over the west, but no place did he have worse service than me.

[Community Alumni]

#1Flyboy wrote:
Notice the low rating on the reviews please....

Many of those units are being sold as "open box," which leads me to believe they were returned by unsatisfied customers. When I could determine brands, I checked reviews elsewhere and a few of them had decent reviews.

[_1Flyboy]

Notice the low rating on the reviews please....

[pianotuna]

Start with a great antenna. I wish phones had a "real" antenna port. Then get a booster.

[Community Alumni]

2oldman wrote:

gemsworld wrote:
The real test of T-Mobile coverage will take place when we start traveling, but so far so good.

Perhaps their coverage has improved, but, Verizon's been very good to me. I'm not sure how much of your "careful consideration" was cost. 🙂

We were with Verizon for about 20 years, most of those years living in a very large metropolitan area where coverage was second to none. Verizon also served us well most of the time in our many travels across the country. However, as I mentioned before, where we live now T-Mobile has better coverage than Verizon. Proven by testing Verizon and T-Mobile cell phones side by side using apps measuring signal strength, tower locations and speed comparisons, and by checking a couple of up-to-date cell coverage third-party websites. And, yes, cost was part of our careful consideration.

[rlw999]

If it were me, I'd stick with name brands like Wilson or WeBoost -- it's easy to make a booster that increases signal strength shown on your phone, but is so noisy that the signal is lower quality that without the booster. You could get lucky and find a cheap booster that's perfectly tuned and working well, or you could get a bad one and it's really hard to know how well it's really working without signal testing equipment.

Plus, you're supposed to register the booster with your cellular company, and they may not agree to register an off brand.

And finally if you're mostly interested in data connectivity rather than making celluar calls, you might be better off with a roof mounted hotspot since they'll use multiple antennas with MIMO to get faster bandwidth than you'll get through most boosters.

[2oldman]

gemsworld wrote:
The real test of T-Mobile coverage will take place when we start traveling, but so far so good.

Perhaps their coverage has improved, but, Verizon's been very good to me. I'm not sure how much of your "careful consideration" was cost. 🙂

[agesilaus]

Coverage maps

Looking at those maps I'd have to say that Verizon is best out west, and T-Mobile is second ATT has giant gaps. The western half of WY for example. That goes along with our experience, my wife had ATT and was often w/o coverage out west. I had it almost everywhere we went. She change to Visible which is what I have now. Out west in this case means the desert SW and mountain states excluding the left coast.

[Community Alumni]

agesilaus wrote:

2oldman wrote:
You may consider switching to Verizon and not have a need for a booster.

Yeash T Mobile has the worst coverage out west. Verizon is the best followed by ATT

After careful consideration we recently switched from Verizon to T-Mobile. We actually have much better coverage with T-Mobile than Verizon in our small community. The real test of T-Mobile coverage will take place when we start traveling, but so far so good.

[Community Alumni]

agesilaus wrote:

gemsworld wrote:

agesilaus wrote:
You are rolling the dice buying electronics from eBay chinese suppliers. I bought this unit off Amazon
where you can at least return something. It seems to give about one to two bars of signal boost. Tho I have not done a quantitative test yet. We had visible/Verizon signals everywhere this last summer except one spot. That was in 21 states and 32 camp spots.

I'm also considering this unit. I like the fact it comes with an external omni-directional antenna. Based on what I've read, experts recommend using omni-directional antennas for RVs since they don't require taking the time to aim the antenna.

We bought a painter pole that extends to 20 feet for$35 from Lowes. Putting the antenna up higher can get a signal when you have none or a weak signal. I could put a directional antenna on that but like you I am holding off on that. We did not have the pole last summer tho the antenna is on the top of our ladder, about 10 feet up.

I'm also planning to get a telescoping pole.

[agesilaus]

gemsworld wrote:

agesilaus wrote:
You are rolling the dice buying electronics from eBay chinese suppliers. I bought this unit off Amazon
where you can at least return something. It seems to give about one to two bars of signal boost. Tho I have not done a quantitative test yet. We had visible/Verizon signals everywhere this last summer except one spot. That was in 21 states and 32 camp spots.

I'm also considering this unit. I like the fact it comes with an external omni-directional antenna. Based on what I've read, experts recommend using omni-directional antennas for RVs since they don't require taking the time to aim the antenna.

We bought a painter pole that extends to 20 feet for$35 from Lowes. Putting the antenna up higher can get a signal when you have none or a weak signal. I could put a directional antenna on that but like you I am holding off on that. We did not have the pole last summer tho the antenna is on the top of our ladder, about 10 feet up.

[agesilaus]

2oldman wrote:
You may consider switching to Verizon and not have a need for a booster.

Yeash T Mobile has the worst coverage out west. Verizon is the best followed by ATT