A portable cell booster? Is there such a thing?

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A customer asked this of us, and I thought it would make for a good article:

I need a cell booster that I can take with me from place to place. They’re too expensive for me to buy one for every place I go.

So first of all, I get it.

Cell boosters, especially good reliable ones from good companies, aren’t cheap. They are a great investment when you consider they will last about five times longer than your phone and cost about half as much. But, they’re not cheap. So if you can have one that you can take with you, that would seem to be a way to get the most out of your hard-earned cash.

The problem is…

Most cell boosters are designed for permanent installation. You could, I guess, buy all the antennas and mount them in different places, bringing the one base unit with you as you travel. That would save some money and I think it would give the results you need. But of course, you would be limited to places you’ve already been and already installed antennas.

There’s another option

This is SureCall’s EZ-4G cell booster system. It’s designed for apartments or anywhere that you can’t mount an antenna outside. The idea is, the large circular part sits behind a window and the other part sits as far away from that as possible. It’s a very passable solution for a space 1,200 feet or smaller. It also is the closes thing I can think of to a portable cell booster.

Because nothing actually gets permanently mounted, the EZ-4G can be easily packed up and taken from place to place. It’s easy to pack up and carry around.

SureCall, who makes the booster, actually gives you a nice, high-quality box that even comes with a handle. It’s perfect for packing things up again and again.

Is this as good as any other cell booster?

Being an indoor booster, it’s not going to necessarily work as well as an outdoor one. It’s limited to working with the signals you can get inside the home. However, if you still have one bar inside, it’s going to really satisfy you for a small space. The key as I said is giving the two parts as much separation as possible. If you can arrange it so they are in totally different rooms then things will work out really well.

Can you use a mobile booster inside?

You could set up a car cell booster inside, but there are a few problems with that. First of all many car cell boosters are permanently mounted too. If you’re using a cradle booster like the Drive Sleek, it’s only going to work for one phone and only when that phone is on the cradle. There’s also the matter of supplying power, although there are adapters that let you convert your inside AC power to a power socket for this sort of thing.

While it may seem like a good idea, it’s really not though. A mobile booster isn’t going to cover a lot of area and you won’t be very happy with the way it works.

Need more advice?

The fine folks in our Novi, Michigan call center are here for you! Give us a call at 888-233-7563 and we’ll help answer any question you have!

 

 

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.