signal boosters for home?

[shedevil7953]

I've searched and read other threads regarding this but most are several years old. My situation is that we live in a rural area. We had satellite for internet service a few years back but it was expensive and the internet would crawl. When we got smartphones, I was educated about tethering and hotspots. Therefore, we bought a mobile hotspot and use that for our internet needs. It was great until about 6 months ago. Speeds started slowing down but still much better than satellite. Long story short, I check my speeds daily and a couple of weeks ago Windows 10 anniversary update tried to download. It crashed twice saying it couldn't complete. I discovered our speeds were less than 1 Mbps. Through process of elimination, I tested my phone, 2 laptops, trying to determine if the hotspot was going bad (3-4 years old). All was consistent.

Next day, I called AT&T and they opened a tech case ticket. The following day I drove to the nearest tower which is 1.56 miles from our home. Tested my phone, over the top speeds. The closer I got to our home, I stopped and retested. Signal kept dropping. Once home, signal back to 1 Mbps. It's hard to work part time from home (I'm retired) when websites load very slowly. I only keep 1 or 2 pages open at all times.

I realized there must be some sort of interference between our home and the tower. Doing a little research, I discovered cell phone signal boosters. I have no problems with the signal when out and about, just internet use. However, the prices are prohibitive and really don't want my 72 year old husband up on the roof installing an external antenna. AT&T says the towers will all be updated by the end of the year. I realize it could be congestion as the neighbor has Verizon, use the same tower and has the same problem. Is there a better solution?

I apologize for the lengthy post . Thank you.

 

[svim]

I don't think a 'signal booster' in your case will be a solution for your problem. (Note depending on who and where you buy one from it may be referred to as a 'femtocell' or with AT&T they're labeled as 'microcells'.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell
A signal booster needs at least two things to function (well, technically three if you include a power plug). The first is a broadband connection and the second a GPS signal. So typically you'd plug a microcell into a cable/DSL modem, or if you have a home network set up, into a wireless router (to get an online connection) and locate the microcell unit itself by an outward facing window (to get a GPS signal). Essentially a microcell takes in the online connectivity and puts out a cellular signal. So in your case a microcell isn't going to help, the whole issue loops back to the fact you live in an area where getting online connectivity is problematic.
What's odd is you live well within a couple of miles of that cellular tower. Unobstructed a typical cell tower will have a range of at least ten miles (or even twenty) but if there are hills and valleys involved that could get reduced considerably. (Just for scale between a cell tower and a microcell, it's range is more around 50 feet, allowing for typical drywall walls and such, more if you have one open area.)
Anyway, I don't have any suggestions for a viable alternative. You already experienced the pricey and inconsistent nature of satellite Internet service. Apparently there's no option for even a lowly DSL connection in your location? There might be very a remote chance a different phone carrier might provide better coverage for you. They're often very territorial so what works well in one area is terrible somewhere else. Considering your neighbor using Verizon is also experiencing this same problem I tend to doubt Sprint or T-Mobile will be a solution but maybe take a look here for a rough comparison:
https://opensignal.com/network-coverage-maps/
(Open Signal relies on crowd-sourced data so being in a remote area it might not help much at all.)

 

[shedevil7953]

Thank you. I appreciate your candidness.

 

[jlzibell]

From reading your post, I gather you are using the cell connection for internet. In that case an AT&T microcell will not help you. That device requires an internet connection, either DSL of cable internet. The external antenna and relay systems might help, but as you say adding the external antenna would be risky.