CELL PHONE SERVICE

[Dom Aldellizzi]

Has anyone tried the cell booster antennas for house or auto? Any luck? Does anyone have good service up here? If so, what company and what model phone? Something we all need in the fire season when services go out.

[Jim Iamurri]

I have ATT and it is spotty at best, but I can find service in several spots on property.. I'm on American Road.

Just before the nursery heading North on Daily Road around the 5 mile marker, if you look up the hill on right, there is a 10mgal FPUD water storage tank. Next to it, a large tower has been put up for Riverside County Emergency Services...
Phone companies sometimes contact to place cell sites on these towers...

What we need is to contact ATT and others to urge them add cell transmissions to them!

[TJ Lynas]

I was recently speaking with someone from Verizon about our poor coverage and he said that if we have some property for them to put in a tower that they would do that.  Is there any Water Dept property or similar that Verizon could use to put in a tower? 

 

The other option would be for our community would be to start a co-op for high speed. There is a community in 10 Sleep Wyo that did just that. They have fiber optic to their 400 person town and a lot of the residents work from home teaching English to foreign students. This is just one possibility. Someone needs to reach out to Bill Horn for some grant money on this. 

 

What do you all think?

[TJ Lynas]

All, I was talking with some friends that live in over in Rainbow and they said that there is a guy providing high speed through radio signals. Anyone hear about this or how it works. It suppose to be pretty good but I haven't seen anything.  I did have a cell signal in my office yesterday for the first time in 9yrs. Don't have one today though. 

 

Who would be interested in starting a co-op to put in high speed? We would probably need over a 100 people to make this financially viable. Let me know

[Dustin Decker]

I have a customer in Rainbow who has suffered the same issue.  His cellular provider is Sprint.

A few months ago, he purchased a unit from them that connects to the high-speed Internet I provide him, which is now blanketing his property with good signal from Sprint.

 

I'll reach out and get some more details on this - as well as find out if AT&T and Verizon have similar technology available.

Dustin Decker

1 On 1 Communications

[Dustin Decker]

Quick follow-up on the Sprint Cellular issue:

http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20014429-85.html

 

"Sprint spokesman Mark Elliott did tell us, however, that the Airave Access Point is not actually available for purchase. If you have specific coverage issues in your building, you need to inquire with Sprint to see if you qualify--if you do, Sprint will give the Airave Access Point to you for free. Once you end the service, though, you'll have to return the femtocell to Sprint. As for whether you have to pay for the service, Sprint says that they evaluate your eligibility for a free service on a case-by-case basis."

 

Thus - once we bring solid, dependable high speed Internet (5.0Mbps or better) I expect Sprint would ship these units free to customers who call and inquire about them.

[Craig J. Stanziano]

Glad you made this posting....  This is the reason for my joining the De Luz News...  The ability to deliver wireless services to areas that are challenged is my business.  Distributed Wireless Group (DWG) provides engineering services to the wireless telecommunications industry and has done so for over 12 years.

So, with regards to your question...  The effectiveness of a what you describe is an "Off-Air" Repeater (OAR) or Bi-Directional Amplifier (BDA) requires a need to have "line of sight" (LOS) to a donor signal.  The donor signal is the Radio Frequency (RF) being transmitted by the Wireless Service Provider (WSP) for example AT&T, Verizon and/or Sprint to just name a few.

 

If you do decide to proceed with the acquisition of an OAR or BDA be sure your donor antenna (this is the one point towards the donor signal has LOS and is of enough gain to effectively re-amplify this signal to your targeted coverage area.

 

There are offer concerns as well but this is a major one to achieve first! 

[Dustin Decker]

Craig,

These aren't "Off-air repeaters" or "bi-directional amplifiers" - neither of which can be expected to function in De Luz presently because there is no cellular signal to repeat or amplify.

These devices, as I understand it, do not require a line of sight to Sprint, AT&T or Verizon cellular towers, but rather make use of your high speed Internet connection to create an encrypted tunnel back to their network.  Once said tunnel is established, the unit provides an extension of cellular coverage locally.  I do not have information on how powerful the transmitter in these units is, but it's a relatively fair assumption that it will cover something in the neighborhood of one acre.

 

Here's where the waters get interesting, if not muddied... 
Suzy Smith and Tom Jones are neighbors in De Luz, and they both use Verizon wireless when not at home.  Suzy purchase some high speed Internet services from a local provider, then requests one of these units from Verizon.  Verizon sends Suzy the unit, she installs it, and now has great cellular coverage on her property.  Tom Jones, who formerly had no Verizon signal to speak of on his property, will likely see one or two bars of coverage become available on his property, depending on the strength of the transmitter, the terrain, etc.

 

Ultimately, Suzy's Internet service is carrying the back-haul data to Verizon in this case and footing the bill for it - but the good news is the data requirements for carrying a voice call are pretty minimal.  (And if Suzy is a 1 On 1 Communications customer, she doesn't have to worry that her neighbor Tom is running up her Internet bill because it's unlimited.)

[TJ Lynas]

Craig,

 

I'm a friend of Chris Arnolds and I asked him to look into what it would take to get cell service in De Luz and I guess he is doing that by engaging with you. Dustin Decker is our high speed internet person that is going to bring high speed to De Luz. We're having a meeting tomorrow at the De Luz Volunteer FD fire station at 2pm. If you want to stop by and discuss what it would take to get cell service out here feel free. 

 

Best,

Dustin Decker said:

Craig,

These aren't "Off-air repeaters" or "bi-directional amplifiers" - neither of which can be expected to function in De Luz presently because there is no cellular signal to repeat or amplify.

These devices, as I understand it, do not require a line of sight to Sprint, AT&T or Verizon cellular towers, but rather make use of your high speed Internet connection to create an encrypted tunnel back to their network.  Once said tunnel is established, the unit provides an extension of cellular coverage locally.  I do not have information on how powerful the transmitter in these units is, but it's a relatively fair assumption that it will cover something in the neighborhood of one acre.

 

Here's where the waters get interesting, if not muddied... 
Suzy Smith and Tom Jones are neighbors in De Luz, and they both use Verizon wireless when not at home.  Suzy purchase some high speed Internet services from a local provider, then requests one of these units from Verizon.  Verizon sends Suzy the unit, she installs it, and now has great cellular coverage on her property.  Tom Jones, who formerly had no Verizon signal to speak of on his property, will likely see one or two bars of coverage become available on his property, depending on the strength of the transmitter, the terrain, etc.

 

Ultimately, Suzy's Internet service is carrying the back-haul data to Verizon in this case and footing the bill for it - but the good news is the data requirements for carrying a voice call are pretty minimal.  (And if Suzy is a 1 On 1 Communications customer, she doesn't have to worry that her neighbor Tom is running up her Internet bill because it's unlimited.)

[Craig J. Stanziano]

Mr. Decker,

Thank you for that clarification and I would then agree with what you have stated if the in fact the equipment indicated at the beginning of this thread is what industry describes as a "femtocell".  These devices are programmable and can define the users that are allowed to access it.  As well, the WSP has hard limits on the total number of simultaneous users as well.  So, I hope Suzy is friendly with Tom!

[Craig J. Stanziano]

Mr. Lynas,

Thank you for the invite but it would be extremely challenging to make such an event on this kind of notice.  I will say based on the superficial review I have made thus far there are deployment scenarios that are applicable.  As we all know, the reason for this situation in the first place is economics.  So, the ability to address that would have to be comprised in the deployment method!  What could help me, not sure this is the forum to engage in, are the demographics for the area.  Nothing of the personal level but more the population and home counts would be great.  Finally, and this is a big one, if you would happen to know the current coverage extents of the WSP's that would be fabulous!  This is something that DWG would do if fully engaged but for this round of investigation a set of cross streets would be satisfactory.   

[Dustin Decker]

Sounds like security wasn't an afterthought for the femtocell... thanks for the heads up Craig - I'm going to be troubleshooting one of the Verizon flavor in the morning I think...