WEST U.S. -- Need a little bit of help getting any signal at all in SoCal

[tallship]

I moved full time to my ranch in Flamingo Heights about four years ago, after selling my ISP and datacenter in Orange County. Bought a small retail business and having since sold it, I'm going back into IT work.

I'm familiar with ISP operations and enterprise management, including VoIP services which I'm thinking about providing in my area here as a WISP startup.

I know so very little about cell phone technologies. Shame on me.

When I moved here full time I was on the 5000 minute plan w/T-Mobile, and my coverage ended at the top of my driveway. My usage went from 4000+ minutes/mo down to maybe 40 minutes, and most of that was just to pass time while on Interstate 10, since I know longer had to provide technical support over the phone.

Now I need a cell phone here at the ranch, and want to use it as one of my primary numbers. to avoid all of that crap with the term contracts I got Boost Mobile, and it works great in the city, but not at all here at my house.

I'm located exactly here: 34.21565046008699, -116.44767791032791

My boost mobile service is only fifty bucks a month for unlimited everything, which I think is kewl, except that it doesn't begin working until I'm 12 miles south of my house, when decending into the town of Yucca Valley - where it works flawlessly.

The Sprint coverage map shows that coverage exists about 200 to 400 yards east of me running along highway 247, and ends somewhere near the edge of my property.

Boost has told me that I'm on Nextel Towers, unless I want to change phones to the ones w/o the PTT feature, such as the Motorola W385, which uses Sprint towers. I like the idea of a SIM chip, I can swap phones on the fly if I like, but my current phone, an i776 which uses a SIM card also uses the Nextel towers.

Nextel coverage, according to the Sprint coverage map, occurs seemingly about 100 feet above me and a few hundred yards west of me, in the hills behind me, which is ironic because There's nothing there. The coverage is very spotty according to the map in surrounding areas, but I'm only concerned with coverage at my house.

I just purchased a T-Mobile SIM Chip w/10 minutes on it to see if T-Mobile has gotten any better out here, but want to avoid using them due to contract terms which I hate, and also having to pick a plan that isn't unlimited everything for a flat fee - or at least not one as economical as Boost's.

Given the expertise here on these forums, I was wondering if the following schemata would work for me here at my house, considering I've provided exact coordinates that will yield lat/lon and elevation:

A Wilson Electronics 301111 Yagi (I have a thirty foot push up pole and other external mounting capabilities, and can even purchase a tower if need be since I'm a Ham radio operator too with special priviliges for raising towers if need be).

A Wilson Electronics 804006 60db wireless amplifier.

I have no way of knowing whether this will work, since I have no heading to point the yagi towards the nearest Nextel tower, and don't even know if there is one in LOS, although I would imagine there is based on the coverage map that I've seen.

I have no way of knowing whether this is overkill either, and would opt for a much cheaper solution if that would work. I don't mind spending the money on the components, but if I did that and it didn't work then I'm out about 600 bucks.

To keep Boost Mobile, I would even, as a second choice, go with the Motorola W385 which uses the Sprint towers and use the Wilson 801365 amplifier that works with Sprint (and T-Mobile too).

I looked at the zBoost products (much less expensive, but do not work with Nextel services) at wi-ex.com but that's only an option if I switch to the phone that uses Sprint's network (or anyone else but Nextel, apparently).

I don't know of any real resources to find the towers or see any real topo surveys by carrier, other than what the carriers themselves publish, so If anyone can offer some help and guidance I would really be grateful.

Kindest regards,


Bradley D. Thornton
Manager Network Services
NorthTech Computer
EDIT: Please do not include personal information in the public forums. If you wish to contact someone please use the PM function to send that information privately.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Boost Mobile operates on the old Nextel iDEN network. I don't know about California, but I live about 3 miles from the old Nextel corporate headquarters (still a major center for Sprint/Nextel) and Nextel coverage is the absolute worst. Sprint is a bit better, but still nothing to write home about, at least in this area.

I do think that going with the CDMA Sprint phone will probably be the cheapest, and most effective option for you. Do you have any friends on Sprint? If so invite them over and see how well the phone works on your property. If the Sprint phone works then that will be your cheapest option. Setting up antennas & repeaters can be complicated, plus it is very possible that you can spend over $1,000 and still not have a useable signal.

[crood]

One thing you wouldn't have to be concerned with is a contract on Tmobile. Their new Even More Plus plans have eliminated them. However, you'll have to pay full retail for a phone if you don't already have one. Unlimited Talk, Text, & Web is $79.99. However, unless they've improved coverage in your area, it may not be an option.

How's the Verizon service in your area? If it's good and you're not looking for smartphone data, you might consider PagePlus. Unlimited Talk & Text plus 20MB of Data for 39.99

On the economics side, how economical is any carrier if you're paying them while not able to use their service where you need it.

[budney]

Looks like AT&T has somw good coverage in your area. They have a prepiad plan that is $60 for unlimited voice & text. Also Verizon looks to have coverage out there too, so Page Plus might be a good choice.

[larry]

Have you thought about Sprint (CDMA) with an Airave unit? The Airave would provide signal in and around your house.

[larry]

Just checked my Sprint tower map and they have a tower not too far from there at 56327 Breezy Lane, 92286. Not sure what the topography in the area looks like or how far this cell site would reach. But on paper you should have coverage at that location you posted.

On a side note I don't see any Nextel (iDEN) towers anywhere near there.

[tallship]

Wow!

Thanks everybody! I'll have to lookup and see what an air rave card is, but I know where that tower is on Breezy lane - At least, I know the building it's in because I went to a moving sale there about a year ago, and if it's the place I'm thinking of there is a house, a large unattached garage, and on the second story of the garage is a door with all kinds of high voltage warnings, with a little steeple sort of third story.

If that's right, and I'll double check that, there is indeed a hill on my property smack dab between my house and the premises where the tower is - no line of sight.

On another note, it took me a while because I scoured the verizon website and found nothing. Then I googled and found a bunch of worthless aggregators with dilapidated websites of varying professionalism.

So I called verizon. That was indeed an adventure! First, I got the regular contract sales dept, then they transfered me to the prepaid sales dept, and then they put me on hold for about 15 minutes while they attempted to transfer me to PagePlus.

Eventually I got through, and this indeed looks like the service I want. They even have 20megs/mo of web through their service, but I need to pick my phones selectively, as some are not supported with their service.

I won't use more than 20Mbytes/mo of web access anyway, since the only thing I would use it for is accessing Google Voice to generate my phone calls. I prefer to have all my calls come in on my google voice number instead of people having to remember a bunch of other numbers.

It would be really nice if I could have my caller ID report my Google voice number when I dial directly from my cell, but I suppose I can block caller ID on outgoing calls and then make the calls through Google Voice when the receiving party blocks blocked numbers LOL.

Aside from the phones that are on the Page Plus website as operable for everything, the listed the following phones for me:

Kyocera kx414

LG vx3330 vx3200 vx4400 vx4500 vx4650 vx8500

Motorola v262 v265 w385

Samsung scha 650 670

Samsung 950

Any phones not listed on their website or in the list above, the Page Plus rep told me that I may have to contact the manufacturer to unlock/program, etc., to work with their services, web especially since Page Plus uses a different gateway than Verizon itself.

They also told me that I can use LPN to have my Boost Mobile number ported to their system in typically a 3hr window (although it can take up to seven days). So I don't lose that number.

Not sure what to do with the remainder of the month with Boost, maybe get a new number from them if I intend on using their service. but basically, I just blew 50 bucks on them.

Now I need to research phones that I'm interested in, and the page plus rep said I can begin the service with a 29.00 phone from Circle K and then the 39.00 card, after that I just recharge it on their website with my credit card each month - but he warned me to wait until the very last day of service, or until the phone goes dead before recharging it for another month. That's the only screwey thing about their service I've seen so far.

I didn't check the AT& T services, as I think I'll be happy being on the verizon network, so now I'm going to go shopping on ebay for acceptable phone models and then decide on one. If anyone has full featured phones for really cheap you can PM me if you like or have a good source for phones that will work well with Page Plus.

It's really a shame that verizon proper doesn't have a regular plan with basically unlimited services, and it's indeed ironic that it takes a prepaid service plan to more than compete with anythign they have requiring term contracts.

Man! I'm glad I posted here on this forum! I would never have found out about page plus otherwise!

Thanks guys!

[tallship]

Oh you know there's something that I should mention here, it's kind of off on a tangent, but it has to do with using single phone number for all incoming calls.

with a cell phone, there's the dillema of giving out a single number (as in my case, a google voice number), but when yo make an outgoing call from a cell phone you either have to block it or let the caller id report the cell phone number.

The way to get around this is to use an Asterisk Server or a FreeSwitch Server, Asterisk being the most popular. All outgoing calls from your cell phone would be to a DID number on the Asterisk server. You can get these numbers from companies like BroadVoice or VoipJet, and many others. Can't do it w/Vonage though, as they lock everything up.

With Broadvoice and VoipJet, for example, you have complete control over your Caller ID - it can report anything you want it to. So you call the phone number of your Asterisk box and and either punch in an extension you've set up in your dialplan for an outside line of your choice, which will report the Caller ID you want, and that way, you'll never receive incoming calls directly on your cell phone from others - you can change your numbers whenever you like and everyone always has the phone number you want them to.

You can also, in your dialplan, set up other extensions that would, for lack of a better term, act as speed dial extensions to numbers you call frequently

And there are voice options if you're brave that you can use so that once your asterisk server answers you can call people by voice activated commands, although I haven't worked too much with that.

If you're wondering what this would cost, an example *could* be, for example, $19.95/mo for a basic VPS in Dallas Texas that you could install an asterisk server on (as well as anything else under the sun including hundreds of websites), plus say, 25 bucks a month for a broadvoice number (You can have two outgoing calls at one time on each number), and then you configure your asterisk server with your dialplans.

In my case, what I'm intending on doing with my page plus service is just this, to report via Caller ID my Google Voice number, so that all calls going out will report that number and everyone who simply saves my number will call me back on my Google voice number, which will ring all phone numbers I have specified simultaneously. i.e., my home landline, office line, cell phone, etc.

You don't need google voice to do this, but the control panel w/Google voice is totally fantastic and accessable via the web over your cell phone so you can make changes and add people to your address books, have custom messages by group or individuals calling in, etc.

To do that in Asterisk requires quite a bit of additional coding, and why re-invent the wheel?

Thanks Everyone!

[larry]

Originally Posted by tallship

I'll have to lookup and see what an air rave card is,

A Sprint Airave is actually your own private mini-cell tower that you hook up to your high speed internet service. It's better than a repeater and can provide a good signal to your entire house. It's about the same size as a router. The only drawback is that you have to pay for it.

Originally Posted by tallship

but I know where that tower is on Breezy lane - At least, I know the building it's in because I went to a moving sale there about a year ago, and if it's the place I'm thinking of there is a house, a large unattached garage, and on the second story of the garage is a door with all kinds of high voltage warnings, with a little steeple sort of third story..

Yep that's one.

[RJB]

In addition to the Sprint Airave, Verizon has the same thing called the Network Extender.