Any recommendations for cellphone service?

[RV Squirrel]

My wife and I live in Maryland.  Our cellphone coverage is terrible in our neighborhood, and we are looking to take advantage of "Black Friday" plans to update our phones and network.  We currently have Verizon, which is not working for us... we often have better cell service at a remote campground then we do at home!  We are considering T-Mobile and AT&T, but are wondering what the coverage would be at campsites.  Any recommendations for cellphone service?  We would be getting new phones, so a 5G network is an option if it came at a reasonable cost. 

[charliem]

Before you jump to T-Mobile check with a close neighbor who is on AT&T. T-Mobile uses some combination of Verizon and AT&T towers so their coverage can be no better than those towers.

[RV Squirrel]

Will do.  I was about to knock on some doors today when my wife stopped me.  "Normal people are eating turkey and watching football" she says. 

I found an interesting interactive coverage map maintained by the FCC.  I'm not sure how much to trust it though... I used it to search some of our favorite campgrounds, and got different results when going from one end of the campground loop to the other!

[charliem]

Guilty as charged on the Turkey; couldn't care less re football. I may have been confused a bit re T-Mobile. Consumer cellular uses other folks' towers but not sure about T-Mobile. They may have their own towers but I suspect they suffer away from population centers or highways. Historically Verizon has had the most consistent service in the more remote areas. I hate AT&T for their attitude toward customers but they may be an option for your home service. Only research will tell.

[RV Squirrel]

I spoke with two neighbors this morning.  One had T-Mobile, but it didn't work out so he switched to AT&T which is working okay.  The other has T-Mobile, but has to turn on WiFi assist to get it to work in the house.  Right now, I'm leaning toward AT&T, but their prices are considerably higher and their pricing plans span across three years instead of two.  Thanks for the insight!

[charliem]

Yep. AT&T still hasn't figured out they're not the only phone company in town. That said they might be the best solution for you at home. You're approach to asking close neighbors is the best. Like most other things there is no one size fits all solution.

[Merlin]

Couple of quick ideas for you....

At home, your cell phone might have a provision for using your home wifi for calling/texting/data. My Iphone does. If that's the case, it would be much better than a weak cell signal. If not, a cell booster is a good bet. I used a Surecall Fusion at home before I switched to wifi calling and it worked great to bring a weak signal inside the house. The key is the outdoor antenna as well as the booster unit transmitting the signal to the inside antenna. 

On the road, your camper and vehicle very effectively block cell signals because of all the metal. It would be worth adding a cell signal booster. In my camper, I installed WeBoost Drive Reach. It works with all carriers and makes a dramatic improvement inside. Again, the key is the outdoor antenna. It's a better solution than chasing which carriers offer a better signal at any particular campground. Verizon or AT&T towers are used by pretty much all carriers and they both offer very broad coverage now. You really won't gain much coverage advantage in choosing one over the other. Make your carrier decisions based on other factors.

The mapping site at cellmapper.net is the best I've found for showing towers and signal strength for cell carriers. The signal strengths shown on the map are updated by actual user data, so it's pretty good.

[RV Squirrel]

I have wifi calling enabled on my phone, but still have problems with Verizon.  I can call from my home, but for some reason it seems that folks cannot reliably call me. Perhaps this might work better with other carriers. I recently used this wifi capability when I locked myself out of the house.  I realized that I couldn't call my wife because of poor Verizon signal strength.  I got the idea of standing near the corner of the house closest to my wifi router, and that allowed me to make the call!

I wonder if I were to purchase the "WeBoost" system, if I could use it in the house when I wasn't camping.  It might be a hassle to move it though, and I'd likely need two permanently mounted antennae (one for the house and one for the TT). 

Thanks for the cellmapper link.  It's pretty neat.  I was able to determine the cell tower locations for Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.  The weird thing is that one neighbor says that Verizon is poor and AT&T is great, but they both have cell towers in the same locations!  Perhaps their towers have different signal strengths.  T-Mobile has one tower in the same location, but two others in different locations not far from Verizon and AT&T.

Another neighbor has offered to walk around my house/yard with his T-Mobile phone.  I thought that it might be an interesting "can you hear me now" test.

Thanks for the advice about being overly concerned about coverage.  I'll keep that it mind!

[Merlin]

WeBoost does make systems for 120V that you could move around, providing you had in/out antennas in both places. The WeBoost Drive is 12V so that would not work in your house. Lots of places sell aftermarket antennas, so it's certainly an option to move a booster. I did permanently mount both inside and outside antennas on my camper.

Before I moved to Starlink at my cabin, I had an aftermarket yagi type antenna on my own 40' tower pointed at an AT&T tower 12 miles away. It was connected to a SureCall booster and worked! 

I found that with AT&T and my iPhone, WiFi calling works well if I turn off cellular, forcing the phone to use WiFi. You might try that with Verizon, just making sure you turn cellular back on when you leave the house.

[charliem]

Merlin's post brings up two important points. The most important improvement you can implement is an outside directional (gain) antenna. That will do more than any electronic gain you add. The gain and height of the antenna is all important. The second point is turning off cell service to force the phone into wifi operation.

Sorry you're having so much trouble.

[RV Squirrel]

I spoke with three more neighbors today.  Two had T-Mobile and were happy with it. The third had "Mint", which he claimed was owned by T-Mobile, uses the same infrastructure, but was cheaper.  Mint requires you to bring your own phone... the prices are low enough that I could buy a phone directly from Apple and still save money.  I'd need to program the "ESIM" chip myself, but if my neighbor could do it then I probably could too.

I expect that I will still need to turn on wifi calling, so I appreciate the points made by others earlier in this post.  If I run into trouble with reception, I'll try the "wifi" only approach that Merlin mentioned.

I've always wondered about using a signal amplifier with an external antenna, either at home or in the TT.  If the antenna is directional, do you need to point it?  How do you know where to point it?  Does one use the cellmapper.net map that Merlin mentioned to try to aim at a particular tower?  Also, will the amplifier/antenna work with different technologies, including 4G(LTE) and 5G?  A look at cellmapper.net suggests that towers with the same technology may have multiple transmitters at different frequencies.  Does the amplifier/antenna work with all of these?

One last question... is the antenna on a mast?  Or is it simply mounted to the side of the RV?

[charliem]

Lots of questions to address here. The directional antenna does need to be aimed. As such it is really only useful for home applications or campsites where you intend to stay for weeks. For overnights it's too much trouble unless you just have to have cell service. The antenna needs to be on a mast so you can rotate and aim it. Finding the correct direction can be from the mapping program or a signal meter but that's more hassle. Best to just use a roof mounted omnidirectional antenna, an amplifier, and take what you get.

The available signal amplifiers should work with multiple services, multiple frequencies, and 4G/5G. You just have to check the specs before buying one. The frequencies are allocated by the FCC to all vendors so they're common.

[Merlin]

The Weboost Drive models come with an omnidirectional antenna. I've screwed mine onto the outside of camper, using the short mast and mounting adapter that comes with it. I admit it was mentally hard to drill a hole in the camper for the wire! I fastened the indoor antenna to the ceiling using industrial Velcro right over the couch where we use the phones. The booster is plugged into 12V and in a cabinet.

All carriers and all current technologies are boosted. 5G is a bit complicated because real 5G is only in cities and has a very short range. What most carriers call 5G for marketing purposes is really just a slightly faster LTE and it is boosted. I don't know if real 5G is boosted, but I don't camp in cities. 

https://www.weboost.com/products/drive-reach-rv-2

As Charlie noted, you can use a directional antenna like a yagi if you want to aim at a particular cell tower with a home booster. Interestingly, if you use a directional antenna, you have to get both vertical and horizontal aiming accurate to get a signal.