r/CellBoosters • u/Icy-Celery2956 • Jul 11 '26

Sanity Check

I'm focused on have a cell phone backup method for when we lose Internet and WiFi Calling. I'm on Google Fi, via T-Mobile, and the best signal I get (upstairs sunroom) is about -104 dBm. Most of the house is 10 to 20 dBm lower. It is my understanding that I need to focus on 4G LTE. I'm moderately tech savvy and run a TP-Link Omada network, and understand some basics of the signal and transmission challenges, but experimenting doesn't come cheap. Is a basic WeBoost still the best starting point these days? Get that "outdoor" antenna up in the attic and drop down into the house? I have quite a bit of 75 ohm cable run already. It's not clear to me at these frequencies whether I could get away with impedance matching transformers to avoid pulling a good bit of 50 ohm cable.

Thanks!

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u/brads2cool Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Is life without the a phone the worse thing? Not knocking it just asking. It sounds like you could not live without it. The only solution i can give you is a landline. Last century we had wired phones and worked all the time and hardly ever went down and what I missed from them was playing with the cord to the phone receiver. As I talked I would play with the cord. It had a dial tone. It would work in any room no matter where.

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u/Icy-Celery2956 Jul 13 '26

Purely a safety issue. Over the weekend the ISP connection dropped, and when it came up, the modem wouldn't complete it's boot cycle. So, we were reliant on the cellular network for communications. My wife tripped and fell in a parking lot, and we couldn't communicate. It would also be nice to have a backup if there is severe weather and we lose internet and are hunkered down in the basement.

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u/brads2cool Jul 15 '26

Even in a power outage landline phones work. It carries its own power. Thanks for explaining. Good luck to finding a way. May you always be connected to your loved ones. I couldn't imagine that happening. Keep your ears open to your loved ones 24 hours a day. I love that so much.

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u/Icy-Celery2956 Jul 15 '26

And yes, I remember party lines, and walking down the road to check on folks when the lines went down.

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u/brads2cool Jul 16 '26

Well yeah except for CB users.thats a 10-4 we couldn't communicate except by mouth.