Getting away from it all doesn’t mean being out of touch. That’s more true than it ever was. And if you’re a boat owner, you probably know it too. You might even choose to stay close to shore just so your phone works. You’re on the water to enjoy life, not stare at a screen, that’s true… but you still don’t want to miss that important text or go without the ability to order something when you need it.
Typically, cell phones will work up to about 3 miles from shore. After that it gets dicey. Cell towers are really only designed to give you service about 1.5 miles away. You get that extra distance while you’re on the water because there’s nothing between you and shore to block the signal. But is that really far enough? What if I told you that you could get cell signals up to 10 miles from shore?
Cell boosters for marine
Cell phone signal boosters are pretty magical things. They take weak signal from far away, massively amplify it, and pump it inside of buildings, cars, and even boats. They give you access to the world even when you’re far from a tower. People use cell boosters to make up for buildings that block cell signals. They also use them while driving to make sure they’re never out of touch. And, probably more important for this article, they use them on boats.
There are a few cell phone signal booster sold specifically for marine use. Typically they’re the same units sold on land for fleet or truck use, just with a white antenna so it blends it. Marine-specific cell boosters tend to carry a higher price, so we at Solid Signal generally recommend just buying a vehicle cell booster instead. You can buy a white antenna for it if that’s very important to you.
But how powerful can that booster be? Can it be big enough to cover an entire yacht? Let’s look at the facts.
The rules for cell boosters
Typically, unless you have some sort of waiver (which you’ll never get), the rules for cell booster power are pretty clear. Buildings can have boosters that top out at 72dB (in other words, a bit more than 10,000,000 times amplification.) You can get more amplification than that if your booster is installed by a qualified technician. Vehicles can have boosters that top out at 45dB (in other words, about 32,000 times amplification). But is a yacht a “vehicle” or a “building?” You could argue that some of the bigger ones are the size of a building.
The other thing you could argue is that vehicle cell boosters need a lower rating because cars can be pretty close to each other. If everyone had a 100dB cell booster in their car, those boosters would probably start interfering with each other and cause chaos. Chances are you’re not going to be that close to another boat, right?
Conventional wisdom is that boats are vehicles, so the 42dB limit applies. That means your typical marine cell booster is going to amplify an area of 300-500 square feet. That’s probably fine for a cabin cruiser but it might not be enough for a luxury yacht.
So what can you do?
It’s not technically impossible to outfit a yacht with a cell booster designed for a home or building. Commercial boosters will cover areas up to 100,000 square feet. Unless you’re running a cruise ship you probably won’t need more than that. But I can’t advocate you putting a building-style cell booster in your boat. I can’t do it because I can’t advocate you break the law. So I won’t, other than saying there’s no technical limitation to it.
You can also have multiple cell boosters, and really with vehicle boosters rarely costing more than $600 that’s not a bad deal at all. You can use one per floor of the boat, or one for the front and one for the back. No matter how you do it, it’s not hard at all to create a solution that works for you.
But then again, if you haven’t worked with cell boosters before, this may seem like a lot of work. Your marine rigger might not have experience with it, and you might not know the right thing to buy.
That’s where Signal Connect comes in. We have more experience with marine entertainment systems than anyone else in the world. We’ve been working with this technology for 20 years and we can help you choose the right equipment. If you are ready to go further out to see, we can help with satellite-based internet solutions too.
Call us at 888-233-7563 and you’ll get a real expert on the line. We have fully-trained tech consultants available to answer the phone during East Coast business hours. Call us! We’re ready to work hard for you and give you excellent customer service. If it’s after hours, fill out the form below and let us know when a good time to call is. We’ll do it on your schedule!
