We’ve all had this experience at one time or another. Our mobile signal can fail at the most inopportune moment. Is there anything we can do about it or should we just accept our fate and make our peace with a bad signal? Luckily there are several solutions, depending on the origin of the problem. The most widespread weapons against a bad signal are boosters. But do cell phone signal boosters work? And if they do, how can we choose the appropriate one for our situation? And what is a signal booster app? We’ll be answering all those questions and discussing what to do if your signal is failing. 

How do cell signal boosters function?

A signal booster (or a signal repeater) is a device, designed to function on a certain frequency and enhance a weak signal on that frequency, or band. Regardless of the bandwidth, any cell signal booster consists of three main components. 

• Outdoor antenna, which is usually aimed at the nearest cell tower and is equipped to catch signals coming in from that tower. It can be directional (yagi), or omnidirectional (omni). Those two are typically used in different settings and for different locations. The outside antenna is mounted on the roof or outside the window. 
• Amplifier. Connected to the outdoor antenna through a cable, it will get the outside signal, enhance it, and make it much stronger. The amplifier should be put in a spot where there’s access to a socket and no excess cable should be used in order not to lose signal quality. 
• Indoor antenna. This antenna receives the enhanced signal from the amplifier and then transmits it over a certain area. It can be one room or a huge warehouse. That depends on the model of the signal booster. 

Do they really work?

Most definitely. Signal boosters are by far the most effective way to fight a weak signal or a ‘dead zone’. The important part is to pick the right device for your needs. They differ by signal frequency, by coverage, by signal enhancement, etc. If you need it for your home office, there’s no need to overpay for a device that can cover your apartment entirely and half the building with it. Or if you live in a rural area, where you have trouble getting a strong enough signal outside, let alone your house, you will need a powerful device to make sure your signal is powerful too. 

How do signal booster apps work?

Cell phone apps have become an important part of our day-to-day lives and provide a lot of time-saving solutions to various tasks that we either cannot or don’t have the time and energy to complete manually. Wouldn’t it be great to have an app that could relieve us from a weak signal? Most of us would even pay money for it. But does a cell phone booster app actually work?

Lately, there have been many apps out there claiming to enhance cell signal. Hundreds of them actually. While a signal booster app can be a useful tool at times, it doesn’t really do much for signal quality. So do signal booster apps work for something other than signal strength? Let’s dig deeper and find out.  

A cell phone signal booster app is in fact a performance-boosting app. They can be very helpful in some situations, which we’ll talk about in a minute, but they cannot actually boost the cell signal on a phone. Why? Because any app can only deal with the resources available on your device. If the signal that reaches your device is too weak, no app can actually deal with that issue, because the issue is not in your phone. 9 times out of 10, your wifi and cell signal problems have nothing to do with the recipient device. So what are these apps used for? 

If you have noticed, that your device is slower than usual and has problems performing tasks that never used to pose problems before, try one of these boosting apps. What they will do is ‘reorganize’ your device, so it will operate more efficiently, therefore faster. They do free up space on your RAM and clear out storage, in a way that lets your device breathe and can even overlock your phone’s processor. 

Also, there’s another category of these apps, called signal monitoring apps. What they do is provide you with information about your signal strength, which can be useful in a number of different situations. 

Which solution should I choose? 

Let’s go over a few typical situations and suggest either a signal booster or a booster app for each of them. 

• The house is in the countryside, the signal is weak and fluctuating. The solution is clearly a signal booster. No app will be able to help. 
• Big office with lots of rooms, only a few of them don’t get enough signal strength. This is also a quest for a signal booster. It’s advisable to get one with small coverage and take care of the problem areas only.  
• The device often gets interrupted calls, in spite of the fact that other devices in the same spot seem to work just fine. In this case, the problem may indeed be in the phone itself and a signal booster app will help out. 
• The device works much slower than it used to. It’s a challenge to use the 4G properly or even the wifi. In this case, if other devices in proximity catch the signal just fine then a cell signal booster app might indeed make a difference. 
• The phone has problems in a certain area of the house, as well as other devices. It can be the basement or a back room. In this case, a signal booster with limited coverage will save a lot of energy and money. 

No one is immune to connection problems, but there are still many solutions available on the market, tailored to specific conditions and locations. A bit of time and effort spent on proper research, and you’ll be able to keep all those problems at bay and away from your devices.