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A Guide to Improving AT&T Signal in Buildings
November 28, 2023
Poor AT&T cell signal coverage inside buildings is a common frustration for businesses and building owners. From dropped calls in corner offices or weak signals in the basement, there are proven solutions to enhance your AT&T coverage. Here’s a step-by-step guide to achieving reliable indoor AT&T service.Network Congestion
When people use a cellular tower, whether it’s for a phone call or they’re browsing the web on their smartphone, they use a certain amount of bandwidth. The towers are designed to accommodate a significant amount of total bandwidth, but they can still be strained — especially if they’re utilizing older technologies.If there are more people using the network than what it’s designed to accommodate, then you’ll experience significant slowdowns, dropped calls, and generally poor connectivity. You can think of it as a doorway that people walk through. If too many of them try to get through at the same time, nobody goes anywhere.The Building’s Construction Materials
Even in areas where a signal is strong, the materials of your building could be interfering. The design and construction of eco-friendly buildings, for example, cause a variety of issues with the frequencies used by mobile carriers. Energy Star and LEED construction projects use problematic materials, such as:– Low-E glass: This glass creates a barrier against UV without obstructing light, but it also subtracts a significant amount from cellular signals.– Bricks and blocks: Clay, shale or cement bricks and blocks reduce cellular signals significantly.Of course, concrete and steel used in most construction projects also dampen cellular signal considerably. Coupled with green design practices, a modern, eco-friendly building can create a veritable dead zone for cell coverage.The Surrounding Area
Just as a building’s construction can impact signal strength, so can the surrounding environment. If your building is a downtown high-rise surrounded by other commercial buildings, then it will be that much more difficult for your devices to grab hold of a strong signal. Even things such as trees and tall hills cause signal loss.Perform a Site Survey
The first step in fixing your poor AT&T signal is identifying where the problem lies. To do that, you’ll need to perform a site survey. This involves canvassing the building on foot and testing areas for poor signal.While you probably have a good idea where the problem areas are based on your experiences with dropped calls and low network speed, it’s important to understand that your phone isn’t necessarily a good indicator of a signal. For example, the bars you see aren’t always accurate in depicting signal strength. That said, some smartphones come equipped with a field test mode that allows you to test different areas yourself.The best way to perform a site survey is to work with an integrator who can test your building with a signal meter. Using this tool, they can accurately determine where in your building you get a good signal and where it needs improving. Once you know exactly where the problem areas are, you can think about the best strategies for improving your AT&T signal.Use WiFi Calling
One way to help alleviate signal problems is by setting up your phone to use WiFi calling. This is a feature supported by AT&T that allows your phone to place and receive phone calls using a WiFi connection. If your building has Wi-Fi and you’re stuck in an office that gets particularly bad reception, then you can use this as a fallback for making calls in a pinch.While it’s a helpful feature, companies shouldn’t rely on WiFi calling for an entire building. If you move all of a building’s mobile traffic to its WiFi networks, you’ll end up congesting that network. Instead of having a poor cellular signal, you could slow down the network for the entire building and all of the devices within.Install a Cellular Signal Repeater
The most reliable, cost-effective solution to poor AT&T signals within a building is to install a cellular amplifier, otherwise known as a cell signal repeater. The repeaters offered by WilsonPro can improve AT&T networks, and they work across a variety of carriers, including Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.WilsonPro cell repeaters capture and amplify existing cell signals found outside of your building. The system works by connecting an antenna to the roof of your building, which is then connected to a repeater within. That repeater is connected to other internal antennas that deliver a robust, dependable AT&T signal to all of your mobile devices.Whether it’s network congestion or poor signal due to building construction, WilsonPro’s signal repeaters will amplify and enhance existing signals so you can eliminate dropped calls, experience better call quality, and have faster Internet speeds.