The accuracy of carrier coverage maps is never straight forward and when it comes to such systems as Wi-Fi, the bars on your device don’t actually tell the story of the signal or the throughput. It’s not that the carrier maps are wrong, and in fact a simple glance at the Dead Cell Zone maps site makes it quite clear that cell coverage is actually getting better nationwide. Coverage problems are more complex these days, however, due to the expectation that signals are to be available everywhere. If you spend a little time reading the comments on the Dead Cell Zone site, you soon realize that outages are associated with building or vehicle (bus) interference.
It’s easy to forget that your car, your home, your eco-friendly sunshield windows are good for your health, but not for signal strength, thus when you bring your devices into hard-to-get-at places, stretching the signal drains the battery. Adding a booster with its own power eliminates such drain and, consequently, the strain on your device.
Signal boosters - the preferred term on the web (and the more accurate one in M2M, as the repeater is normally directly connected to the modem) - are now a necessary component for many of us striving to stay connected.Wilson Electronics offers SLEEK, a series of Cradle Boosters aimed at supporting your 4G/Wireless device, an added benefit of which is SLEEK’s ability to save your battery.
In disasters, both natural (the recent Oklahoma tornados, for instance) and not so natural (cruise ship ordeals come to mind), the power to get to a different tower may be essential.
In circumstances less dire, such as market solutions in Fleet and ATM / Vending - where site visits may be impractical, boosters are often embedded in market solution proposals as a cost to be passed through.
Compared to the price you are paying for your cell service, products that improve your connection may be a great bargain. For the consumer part of the market, this becomes a retail experience. For M2M and enterprise customers, the channel is a little different because although sales teams sometimes are aware of the need and will help the customer source the product; in general, carriers do not like to admit that a signal booster is necessary. In some cases this is understandable, as some boosters interfere with signals from the towers; however Wilson Electronics along with Verizon and the FCC have worked out specifications that reduce the impact of signal boosters.
When I consider the small cells, I realize that tactical deployments will soon become more commonplace and that carriers will not be able to find a one-size-fits-all approach.
At some of our endpoints (the car, the house, the office, etc.) we may have to wait a long time for coverage to match our expectations. Perhaps what we need is a boost.
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