The first test of the weBoost was on our first day. We were driving from the California Bay Area through Southern California into the Mojave desert and
ultimately ending the long day in Las Vegas. While I was driving the whole time, my wife was using her phone and noticed a significant improvement in her connection throughout the drive—to the point where even through some of the more
remote parts of the drive, including the Mojave desert, she had a solid internet connection. This is particularly notable considering the fact that we were in a large steel vehicle that blocks quite a bit of signal.
The real test was the second day when we set camp for a few days in the North campground at Bryce Canyon (Figure 5). First, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bryce Canyon had pretty respectable cellular coverage throughout the main areas of the park—I had a bar or two of LTE in the main areas of the park near the entrance and dropped down to 3G only when I drove miles into the park. At my campsite itself, I had a few bars of LTE at -117dBm, but once I extended my antenna and turned on the booster, I placed my phone on top of the internal antenna, and that jumped up to full bars LTE at -87dBm (a 30dBm gain).
When we started working out of the campground, we quickly ran into an issue, not with our cellular network but with our WiFi. Because our computers were tethering Figure 5. A Lunchtime Stroll at Bryce Canyon
from my cell phone, we easily could work from inside the RV, but the phone’s limited WiFi range made it difficult to work too far outside. Fortunately, I also had installed a Vonets WiFi booster as part of my RV offsite backup project, so I was able to configure it to boost the cell phone’s WiFi signal and set up my office outside in the shade (Figure 6). From there, I was able to work comfortably with a solid connection.
In fact, on the last day at the park, I even participated in a video conference call and was told it was the clearest I had ever been.
The first time we were shocked with the weBoost performance was when we drove within Bryce Canyon to see its natural bridge. When we stepped out of the RV, Figure 6. My Office at Bryce Canyon
I noticed my signal had dropped to zero bars CDMA, and the connection details hopped between no signal and a very weak signal. Although I didn’t particularly need the internet at that point, I couldn’t help but test the booster, so I fired it up, placed my phone over the internal antenna and noticed I got a boost up to a few bars LTE.
We left Bryce Canyon to go to my conference, and once we left civilization again, we were back on the road and camped outside Dinosaur National Quarry on the border of Utah and Colorado. We stayed at an RV park, and inside our RV, we had zero signal.
Outside, if we stood in the right place, we could get a bit over two bars of 3G CDMA.
Once we turned on the booster and went back inside, that signal increased back to full bars LTE.
Our next stop that weekend was Rocky Mountain National Park. On our way there, I discovered the primary downside to having a cellular booster in the van: even in the middle of the Rocky Mountains my wife had plenty of bandwidth to stream John Denver. Unfortunately, once we actually got into the park itself, due to the elevation, mountains, trees and overall remoteness, most of that park has almost no cellular coverage. The first night we stayed at the West campground, and even with the booster, we were only able to wring out a weak 3G connection. The rest of the campgrounds were full, so we moved to a campground just outside the park at Estes Park to start the work week. This campground had a reasonable LTE connection at -108dBm, but we were able to boost it, again, to full bars LTE at -94dBm.
Our final remote stop was one where the weBoost made all of the difference between being able to work from a campground and not. We spent the last two working days of our trip at a KOA outside of Aspen at Crystal Spring. When we parked at our campsite, we were disappointed to find that we had a -123dBm zero bar CDMA connection, occasionally increasing to a single bar if we stood in the right place outside. We could tell when this happened, because we’d get a couple cellular notifications as we were walking around the RV and then nothing. The connection was so weak, my wife couldn’t even make a phone call without it breaking up.
Clearly we couldn’t work with a connection like this. Fortunately, since this was a
KOA, it did provide WiFi as a fallback that my wife tried but quickly found it slow and oversubscribed—as are most campground WiFi connections. With such a weak cellular signal, I didn’t hold out much hope for the weBoost but decided to try it anyway. With the booster on and my phone on top of the internal antenna, that -123dBm weak CDMA connection turned into a -90dBm full bars LTE connection, and we were able to work out of the RV and place clear phone calls just like at home.