What Are the Best Cell Phone Booster Brands?

Booster manufacturers have to use various tricks to detect the best signal from surrounding towers and then amplify them without messing up the carriers' systems. That's why you need to stick with boosters primarily from the big four companies: Cel-Fi, HiBoost, SureCall, and weBoost. Cheaper boosters available from Amazon often aren't FCC-certified, which means they can cause trouble with surrounding cell sites and networks.

Do Cell Phone Boosters Really Work?

Boosters help the most when you have a weak signal—not when there's none at all. Whereas your phone shows bars, wireless industry folks measure signal in -dBm. A number higher than about -90dBm (like -80 or -70) is a strong signal. Anything below -110dBm is definitely weak, and you might not hold onto any signal below -120dBm. Services like CellMapper can show you the signal you're receiving on your phone.

If you're hesitant to invest in a home booster and primarily need coverage to make phone calls, be sure to try Wi-Fi calling. All of the major carriers support this feature, and you can often get better call performance over your home’s Wi-Fi connection.

How Do Cell Phone Boosters Work?

The basic principle behind signal boosters is simple: A big antenna is better than a small one. Instead of relying on the tiny antenna in your phone, boosters capture a cellular signal using a large antenna in your window or outside your house (or car), pass that signal through a device that cleans and amplifies it, and send it out through a rebroadcaster inside your home.

Boosters generally have three main components: an external antenna that sits outside your home, a booster that cleans and amplifies the signal, and an antenna you keep inside your home. A coaxial cable connects them all.

Some products combine the booster and indoor antenna in one unit, therefore making them easier to install and place. But if you own a larger home and are willing to run some coax cable, you can greatly extend the booster’s range with some splitters and several panel antennas. This can get complicated, so, at this point, you might want to get a professional installer to set the system up (especially to reduce interference between multiple in-home antennas).

Most boosters handle bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 17, and 66. That includes base coverage bands for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The important missing band is 71, T-Mobile's 600MHz rural coverage band. Because it took a while for TV stations to get out of that band, the FCC hasn't approved any consumer boosters for band 71. If you want to boost that band, you need to get an industrial booster such as the WilsonPro 710i or SureCall Force8.

Most home boosters also boost between 64 and 71dB of signal. Once again, that's due to FCC regulations. If you need more of a boost than that, you need to move up to Cel-Fi's single-carrier booster line, which can get to 100dB by boosting only the frequencies from one wireless carrier at a time.

The booster store Waveform has a comprehensive guide to how boosters work on its site.

What Is the Best Cell Phone Booster for Cars?

Boosters for your car are similar to in-home boosters, with one exception: You can only get single-device, in-car cradle boosters. These are much less powerful than in-home boosters (the ones we tested boost by 23dB instead of between 65 and 75dB) but are less expensive, take seconds to install and remove, and don't radiate beyond the cradle that grips your phone. We like the weBoost Drive Sleek as a single-device booster.

(Credit: Sascha Segan)

RV owners and people who need to boost multiple devices in a vehicle can get in-car boosters with small radiating antennas that handle several devices. These can be tricky, though, because of how close the output antenna is to the input antenna.

How Do You Install a Cell Phone Booster?

You can install all retail cellular boosters by yourself without any drilling, although ideally, you should hide the cables against your baseboards. You also need to find the optimal antenna position outside your home.

Both SureCall and weBoost have options that let you lean on a professional installer to handle the tricky bits, like sticking the antenna on your roof and orienting it properly. SureCall works with Dish subsidiary OnTech to install any of its boosters for an extra fee. weBoost sells a specific product, the $1,499.99 Home Complete Installed, which includes the installation fee. If you want to do the setup yourself, the standalone Home Complete booster is $999.99.

Can You Boost 5G Signal?

Cellular boosters generally can't boost the "good parts" of 5G networks. AT&T and Verizon carry a small amount of 5G on the old cellular bands 2 and 5. Boosters handle that, so a booster may summon you a 5G icon, but that signal doesn't give you an experience that's much different from 4G. The fastest 5G networks for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are currently on bands n41, n77, n260, and n261; no consumer boosters support those bands reliably.

There is a sneaky way around this. Although no powered boosters work with these bands, passive antennas can still improve the signal. They may only get you 10dB to 20dB of gain as opposed to 70dB, but that isn't insignificant (and even just the fact that the antenna is outside can help).

If you are willing to take on a bit of an installation project, the Waveform's Griddy parabolic antenna and MIMO panel antennas improve signal on the 5G band n77. Connecting an outdoor cellular antenna to a Wi-Fi hotspot that has a TS9 connector, such as the Netgear Nighthawk M6, can also turn an outdoor cell signal into an indoor Wi-Fi signal.

Don't Forget to Boost Your Wi-Fi Signal

(Credit: TP-Link)

Cellular signals aren't the only ones that can benefit from a boost. Check out these quick tips to improve the wireless signal from your router, extend and optimize your Wi-Fi coverage, and speed up your surfing. You can also go right to our roundups of the best range extenders.

Ben Moore, Dave LeClair, and Sascha Segan contributed to this story.