Signal Boosters

Ok so we had our telephone cables stolen where I work. A few hundred phonecalls to Telkom and we realised that it was going to take up to 2 months to get new cables. (Thats 2 months longer than people up the road have been waiting for already)

My Boss decided to quickly try find out what we could do and contacted Vodacom. He was told by the person he spoke to, that he could contact 1 of 3 companies and order purchase a Cell Booster/Yagi aerial and so on.

Anyway, I went to go pick it up now and while I was there, they guy next to me asked me if it was for Vodacom, or MTN, I said both and explained how Vodacom had told us to buy this here. He looked kinda of confused and I paid and continued about my business.
As I was about to reverse out the parking lot, he came running over to me and asked me to come to his car. I was a bit worried but noted that the car guard was watching me. I followed him to his bakkie and realised that he WORKED for Vodacom. He explained to me that he installed these units free of charge and gave me a number of somebody to phone and find out what the hell is going on. But begged me not to let anyone know I had told him.

So WTF is going on here? I have not phoned yet as my Boss said he would kill somebody after being told to spend 4k and then find out he had wasted his money!

What are you trying to do exactly, get a 3G signal? A Yagi shouldn't be 4k anyway.

It sounds like you were wanting a cell extender installed, not just an antenna. You can run a large roof mounted Yagi into a data card but you'd need a full cell extender in order to create a mini 3G cell...

You'd have to find out what equipment you were looking at buying and what equipment this guy installs for "free"

Yeah, The idea was to increase our 3G reception as we only have one spot in the whole office where we can pick up 3G. So we have to all take a laptop to the accountants office and stick our phone out the window to download mail. Due to the fact that the phone lines are down, we will have to do all our phone calls and internet work over Cell phones, until Telkom gets their act together.


What this guy I met, said he installs for free is exactly what I had bought. It was a Yagi Antenna and the Cell extender. I took my two boxes and he opened up some boxes in the back of his bakkie and he showed me his job card/lists for the day. It was EXACTLY what I had bought and what he was doing. He had 2x Cell extenders, and 1 3G booster thing on his list for the day. (My technical knowledge and jargon on this is not the best but I'm sure you know what I mean). His "stuff" was from Poynting though, mine was from Space TV, as Space TV was half the price of Poynting.

We have now mounted the Yagi on an extended pole on the office roof, connected this to the "booster" which is connected to an Omni-Direction antenna. We now also have full signal... all the time ALL over the office, But NO 3G at all. Which is kinda driving the boss insane as I made sure I asked 3 times when I picked it up if it was for 3G as well. I cant even send an MMS anymore as it just stalls and cant connect. Also even with full signal I still battle to hear people on the phone now.

Regardless though I still dont understand why the Vodacom help desk told us to go buy something, that I found out somebody from Vodacom is installing for free? I want to have my story straight though before I phone this guy at vodacom who's number I was given to speak to. Was also hoping I might be able to get a straight answer from vodacom here with out having to start shouting at some guy on a phone I dont know.

Hmmm No comment.. while it is a bit disappointing, Its honestly not unexpected.

Guess I have no option but to phone and find out WTF is going on. I'll let everyone know the out come regardless of what the outcome is

This is quite interesting indeed. Seems like you were at the right place at he right time buying the Wrong thing, Kalvaer

I'd like to hear what the end of this will be...

The Truth is out there

We have terrible cell reception here at work as well. We have logged complaints with Vodacom on numerous occasions. The story we have been told is that if the Vodacom radio technicians cannot rectify the problem by adjusting a tower in our area, then they will install a repeater at their cost.

We are still waiting to hear what will happen next. We have already had one techie here, but he said he was going to go have a look at the tower, then we never heard from him again. When we phoned again, the ticket had apparently been closed.

Kalvaer said:

Hmmm No comment.. while it is a bit disappointing, Its honestly not unexpected.

Guess I have no option but to phone and find out WTF is going on. I'll let everyone know the out come regardless of what the outcome is

Click to expand...

You mean from me? I just picked up this thread. Only showed bold on my forum screen now for some reason. (Seen this before, that threads I've not read goes non-bold)

PM me your contact number and name and I'll give you a call to discuss.

I don't think you get a 2G and 3G cell extender. Only 2G or 3G.

Extender antennas and frequency bands

Must be careful - not all cell extender antennas cover all of the cellphone bands which is the likely reason you do not have 3G. There are essentially 3 bands 900 MHz (voice and gprs) 1800MHz (voice and gprs) 2000-2200MHz (3G/EDGE/HSDPA). Many high gain antennas were sold only at 900 MHz because farmers wanting just a phone normally needed only 900 MHz signal. Some will be "dual band" and also cover 1800. You must get one that goes all the way to 2200 MHz to get good 3G/HSDPA and this is normally done using a so called log-periodic dipole array (LPDA, log-p). Half the price possibly results in half the band as well...

Kalvaer said:

... He had 2x Cell extenders, and 1 3G booster thing on his list for the day. (My technical knowledge and jargon on this is not the best but I'm sure you know what I mean). His "stuff" was from Poynting though, mine was from Space TV, as Space TV was half the price of Poynting.

We have now mounted the Yagi on an extended pole on the office roof, connected this to the "booster" which is connected to an Omni-Direction antenna. We now also have full signal... all the time ALL over the office, But NO 3G at all. Which is kinda driving the boss insane as I made sure I asked 3 times when I picked it up if it was for 3G as well. I cant even send an MMS anymore as it just stalls and cant connect. Also even with full signal I still battle to hear people on the phone now.

Click to expand...

vodacom3g said:

You mean from me?

Click to expand...

I meant from anyone I couldn't believe that I was the first person in SA to have experienced this situation and if I was I was gob smacked!

I'll drop ya a PM and thanks

@ld13 No kidding! If I hadn't been there when I was. I would NEVER of known at all

@Poynting1: You are correct. I have done some research now into it since my boss originally just went ahead and got it sorted out. It seems that the extender we have is only in for up to 900 Mhz and would explain it.

With regards to the cost though. I am not sure. I spoke to my Boss and he says he just phoned both companies and asked for a Yagi antenna/ Cell extender and explained what he wanted. One was R4.5k, the other was R8k

I must say though that I am very peeved off with SpaceTV after specifically asking if this was to extend the 3G signal

Cellphone antennas

Must be some mistake - we do not sell cell extenders (they are technically illegal) - so I do not know how you got a price on one. You may be quite right that our Yagi is more expensive than some of the vendors that sell essentially modified TV antennas. It is clearly quite different to those, especially if you look at specifications.

Even the 900 MHz band is not 900 MHz, but rather 870MHz to 960MHz. A yagi must cover all of it since cell phones jump frequencies 200 times a second. For those interested the band is actually divided in two chunks an down and up at 890MHz-915 MHz and 935-960MHz respectively. Each chunk is 25 MHz (up and dow) and originally Vodacom and MTN each had half. I remember that MTN had the "bad" half of the bottom band (902.5-915MHz). The reason it is bad is that USA has a license free band from 902-928 MHz and much illegal equipment is sold here which interferes with MTN. Originally 870-890 MHz was not used, but I think this is now also in use to increase cellphone capacity.

Poynt being: you may find some antenna seemingly working sometimes (but it may not work equally well for transmit and receive bands or for two operators). This problem is more severe if you look at broadband antennas. In some sense you have to have confidence in the integrity of the designers. Poynting has an internal motto of "Clever products designed by real engineers"). We employ at this stage about 20 "real" engineers of which 3 has Ph.D's and a number of M.Sc's. Very few companies worldwide has an equal number of antenna engineers - they are a costly bunch to maintain however and this has to be recovered somehow, hence prices are sometimes higher. Many people find that the cost of an incorrect antenna (installation/frustration) justifies having something which has been properly designed and tested. Our early Yagi's for example stopped working when wet - lately we do a "rain test", for example, on all new (and old products).

Hi guys. Just some information for you. I had no signal at all at my house and therefore got hold of some big people at Vodacom and they sent out a team of 5 people here and installed a traingular aerial pointing in the direction of a tower, linked to a rather large silver box in my roof. I now have 3G on steroids and signal that rivals standing on a tower. I am told this would cost approx. 35 grand but got it all for free. Works like a charm and I can switch it on or off at any time. Maybe you need one of these?

Also I do not need to connect any device to anything manually. It is always on. Granted I may get radiation poisoning but I have Signal now.