Hi all,

My wife and I just bought a cabin on a lake by Iron River Mi. It is close to water and down a rather steep hill. We were thinking of getting a hotspot phone or device for the place. The issue is we get only 1 bar of cellular service on our phones in the place. Does anyone have or know a decent cell signal booster that's available for AT&T network.

I'm just techy enough to be dangerous. My realtor stated a lot of people are using Star-Link but I don't want to spend 110 a month on a basically spring to fall place while Im still working full time elsewhere

Can you get a seasonal plan on Star-Link, lots of folks who have winter homes here do it with tv/internet service, turn it off when they go home and don't have to return equipment.

Neighbor had a booster from ATT a while back, we had poor service here, he said as long as he was in the house it helped his phone service...

As you probably know a cell phone booster will not do anything if you don’t have a signal to work with. Having said that we have been using a Weboost mobile cell phone booster on our remote overlanding trips with pretty good success and have recommended them to many people.

They also make a system for home use and seem relatively affordable depending on the size of your home.

https://www.weboost.com/products/home-multiroom

If you have internet there, just use wifi calling when you are there perhaps? Even if you don't have now, getting internet probably not much more than a hotspot and infinitely more useful.

I've a bit of experience dealing with this in Northern Michigan. I just last year installed a comprehensive WiFi network with cellular Internet connection for one of my best friends, at his cabin out in the middle of nowhere.

You may have luck with a cellular repeater. But, given your description, my guess is not. The problem is cell towers in N. Mich. are few and far between, compared to the more populated areas.

What I finally had to do for my buddy was mount a pair of cross-polarized directional antennas on the very top of his biggest pole barn and point them midway between the two strongest AT&T towers. (And, yes: In N. Mi., AT&T is, sadly, your best bet.) Those antennas are connected to a very spendy 5g cellular modem.

Then everybody uses WiFi calling inside and nearby the structures. Outside, away from the WiFi network, coverage is spotty.

You might be able to get away with an AT&T mobile hotspot, connected to an external antenna. Might. We did some experiments with his AT&T NetGear Nighthawk mobile hotspot. It wasn't gonna cut it. Not for the bandwidth and reliability he wanted.

First thing to do is find out what carrier people in that area are using reliably.

At our place on Lake Huron, everyone uses AT&T because their tower is only a few miles away. We have. Verizon, whose tower is 20 miles away. The AT&T users have no data issues. We can make and receive calls, but anything more than texting is a no go. I have a couple AT&T prepaid SIMs for the three months we are there.

I’ve looked at boosters, but at about $600 or more for the ones that are likely to work, it’s just not worth it for our purposes.

If you have Wi-Fi internet at your cabin there, just enable Wi-Fi calling on the phones, it’s better than any sort of booster.

When I had AT&T service* it worked fine every place I tried to use it, except at Our Little Airport. There were just a few spots on the airport that got a usable signal for calls and / or texts, and my hangar was definitely not one of those places.

I contacted AT&T, told them that I would need to cancel our plans, as the phone was useless where I worked. Verizon users had strong signals.

AT&T sent me a micro-cell (their name, the generic term is femto-cell) at no cost. This is a device that plugs into a broadband internet router (or modem) and connects to the AT&T network via internet. The micro-cell has an antenna and acts as a local cellular tower. It gave a strong signal in and around the hangar. It supported my iPhone, and would provide service to any visitors to the hangar, as long as their cell phones used the AT&T network.

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*"AT&T service" is an oxymoron.

I'm having the same issue as the op at our lake place and we have a nearby tower. I looked into Sky Link and they only offer month to month plans for business accounts right now. They may for residential in the future. I'm also hoping their costs go down some in time. I only have one or two bars at the most but once out on the lake in a boat you most times get nearly full bars.

Once all the weekenders are up the cell tower gets overloaded and can't handle all the traffic or at least that's what we've been told. I looked into cell phone boosters but the cost was more than I cared to invest. Only thing I can't really do is a lot of video streaming on my phone. On rainy days that kind of sucks but otherwise I'm good without full service.

When we lived in Chapel Hill NC, for some reason our area was devoid of cell signal, except for a small area in the family room. Called Verizon, they were aware of the issue and sent us, free of charge, a signal booster. Plugged in into the router and placed the antenna on a window sill. Not sure if it was voodoo magic, but we went from 0 bars to 4 bars almost immediately. After installation, we could make calls anywhere in the house and yard.

I travel extensively in the Yoop. In many areas outside of the bigger cities you have zero cell signal. I have used Wilson Cell boosters in my vehicle in the past with so-so results.
There is (or was, last time I was up there) a pay phone in Pine Stump Junction.
Can you hear me now?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
When I had AT&T service* it worked fine every place I tried to use it, except at Our Little Airport. There were just a few spots on the airport that got a usable signal for calls and / or texts, and my hangar was definitely not one of those places.

I contacted AT&T, told them that I would need to cancel our plans, as the phone was useless where I worked. Verizon users had strong signals.

AT&T sent me a micro-cell (their name, the generic term is femto-cell) at no cost. This is a device that plugs into a broadband internet router (or modem) and connects to the AT&T network via internet. The micro-cell has an antenna and acts as a local cellular tower. It gave a strong signal in and around the hangar. It supported my iPhone, and would provide service to any visitors to the hangar, as long as their cell phones used the AT&T network.

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*"AT&T service" is an oxymoron.

I don’t think A&T sells or supports those any longer. Wi-Fi calling made them obsolete.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

AT&T "blah blah microcell blah blah"

"AT&T service" is an oxymoron.

I don’t think A&T sells or supports those any longer. Wi-Fi calling made them obsolete.

I have been away from AT&T for several years, so your comment was news to me. I just looked, and you are correct: "Say goodbye to AT&T MicroCell".

So, I have a lightly used AT&T microcell device for sale.

Face-to-face in the parking lot of the local police department.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
If you have Wi-Fi internet at your cabin there, just enable Wi-Fi calling on the phones, it’s better than any sort of booster.

I second this, but in my case satellite internet is not cheap.

How close is the nearest neighbor with star link? Any chance of getting to know them enough to share the cost of their link? Not sure if that violates the terms of use. Probably does, but if they are a reasonable distance away and in particular line of sight from your rooftop, then there would be ways to get a link from their place to yours.

We had issues with our Verizon service at our Indiana house. Complained to them and they sent us a booster for free. Has a satellite type antenna (like what I've had for Sirius xm). It absolutely solved our issues. From 1 bar to 5 at all times.

During Covid and working from home my employer bought me a Weboost system that I installed. It did very little, I think I needed to mount it at the highest point on my roof to get better results - I just did not have an easy way to do that.