Boosting Signal in a Country House in Spain

The Challenge

The customer had hard times with both calls and 4G in a country house located in the northern part of Spain. The challenge was to cover two stories plus the attic, approximately 100 sq. m. each and 300 sq.m. all in all.

In spite of rather good 900 MHz signal (2G, 3G) and more or less bearable 4G on 1800 MHz outside the house, there was no coverage inside. The problem was caused mostly by the old construction peculiarities, more than the location itself. Stone walls of 1m thick fully blocked the signal even though there is still some outside.

HiBoost Mobile Signal Bosting Solution

To fix this signal issue, we offered installing Hi13-ED mobile phone signal booster. This dual band solution is of Home&Office Series perfect for small and medium places like the customer’s house.

According to the request, we were to amplify calls and 3G data on 900 and 4G on 1800 bands. HI13-ED repeater model fully met the need as it supports all these bands.

The booster’s standard kit underwent some changes. A whip antenna (3-5 dBi gain) was replaced to a more powerful one panel antenna (5-7 dBi gain). Outdoor panel antenna (5-7 dBi gain) was also replaced to a wide band directional antenna (7-9 dBi gain) able to receive the weakest signals. To guarantee a proper coverage throughout the ground floor, one more panel antenna along with a splitter were installed.

 

In the close-up above you can see the incoming cable from the antenna (left side), a surge arrestor grounded with a green-yellow cable, the booster itself, and a cavity splitter at the output which was used to split the indoor signal between two indoor panel antennas. You can see one of them, pointing downwards, in that same picture. The other one is several meters away, at the other corner of the house and also pointing downwards. In this way, with two panel antennas, GSM + 4G signal booster system covered the whole house.  

The Results

The 900 MHz cell tower is ~10 km away, but thanks to a position on the top of a mountain, it’s almost in a direct line of sight. So the customer got 4-5 bars everywhere inside the house with only ~50 dB gain. He even had to decrease it manually with MGC buttons as that value was more than enough to get optimal signal amplification.

The 1800 MHz tower is ~6 km away from the house, but blocked by a number of natural obstacles. In view of this, the customer needed full gain (65 dB) to have 4 bars on the upper floor of the house and only one bar on the lower floor. The reason was that the material separating the floors is reinforced concrete, and 1800 MHz have a hard time going through it. To fix problem the customer installed the WiFi router in the upper floor to provide high quality 4G service for the ground floor as well.

Find below a picture of a speed test showing what the customer could get on 4G after all. It is pretty decent, especially considering that before there was no coverage whatsoever inside the house.

 

To sum it up, after final  installation, the amplifying system has greatly improved the situation with the signal. HiBoost Hi13-ED booster with a splitter and two internal antennas had enough power to provide good calls as well as 4G data everywhere inside the house.

Here’s the customer’s feedback on the results of HiBoost use: In both cases the result is very good, I have now phone calls over the 2g 900 MHz band in every corner of the house and 4g data (with download rates in excess of 40 Mbit/s) over the 1800 MHz band in the relevant part of the house (where my wireless router is). So yes, “satisfied” quite describes it.

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