RE: OT: Increasing Cell Phone Signal inside a NOC?

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1

In Finland, it is very usual that cell providers can bring a mini-cell
(_not_ a repeater, a real cell) _in_ to the building and wire all floors and
especially facilities that are below ground level. In my previous life, I
got
a cell provider to install an extension to the in-house antenna network to a
previously unused area of the basement when we decided to build a new
machine
room there. Full coverage indeed. :slight_smile: Well, Helsinki is a city where even
the
metro system has 100% coverage from all four network operators :slight_smile:

Just call your cell operator customer service and ask for someone who is
able
to talk about coverage issues.

--Kauto

2

Just call your cell operator customer service and ask for someone who is
able
to talk about coverage issues.

Practically no cell operator provides access to these people. They take
"coverage reports" and if you�re lucky, tell you when it�s going to be
fixed.

And the subway coverage is far from 100%. Might be 100% on the stations.

Pete

3

Some sort of in-building cell repeater may be sufficient.
The gating item, I believe, is whether you can receive
adequate cellular coverage outside the building (e.g. on the roof).

If so, then a simple repeater should be sufficient.
If not, then a wired micro-cell would seem to be required.

If signal is adequate up on the roof, then
you may be able to construct a purely passive repeater,
composed of a high-gain outdoor antenna, some coax,
and an appropriate in-door antenna located in your
"no-signal" area.

If you want some horsepower, you can consider amplified
cellular repeater systems. (Nextel used to install these
for customers all the time. But they ONLY covered SMR band!)

One example of an active antenna repeater system:
http://cellantenna.com/repeater/building_repeater.htm

I have yet to locate a dual (or tri) band amplified
repeater system. They would be nice, to ensure that
both 800 and 1900 bands worked, so ALL cell/PCS
phones "would just work". If you toss in the SMR bands,
then all cellphones AND Nextel "would just work".
(employees wouldn't be restricted to using just
one vendor, or one band.)

Also, some 800Mhz-band cellphone companies have purchased
additional RF capacity up in the 1900-band. Depending on
how the cell companies ultimately use the new spectrum,
your employees may not receive minimum call-blocking rates,
or may not be able to access cellular data services,
unless both 800 and 1900 bands are accessible.

Some more links that may be of use:

http://www.jl-company.com/Antenna/AmpWilson.html

http://www.cellularspecialties.com/PDF%20Datasheets/CSI-610Datasheet_0905.pdf

http://www.andrew.com/products/inbuilding/default.aspx

Bob

4

On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 04:39:03PM +0200, Petri Helenius scribbled:

> Just call your cell operator customer service and ask for someone who is
> able
> to talk about coverage issues.
>
Practically no cell operator provides access to these people. They take
"coverage reports" and if you?re lucky, tell you when it?s going to be
fixed.

And the subway coverage is far from 100%. Might be 100% on the stations.

Recent equipment in Asia uses a modified coax along the subway lines
to leak EM into the tunnels. 100% reception is expected in most
Asian metro/subway lines.

That has provided some thought, such as providing 802.11b access
on the subways.