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Reasons for Cell Phones having a Weak Signal

Rural Areas

In many rural areas the housing density is often too low to make construction of a new base station commercially viable. In such circumstances it is unlikely that the service provider will do anything to improve reception. This is due to the high cost of erecting a new tower. As a result, the only way to obtain strong cell phone signal in these areas usually involves installing a home cellular repeater. In flat rural areas the signal is unlikely to suffer from multipath interference.

Building Construction Materials

Certain construction materials can attenuate cell phone signal strength. Older structures such as high rise apartments and large office buildings often block celullar signals. Any building that has a significant thickness of concrete, or a large amount of metal used in its construction, will attenuate the signal. Concrete floors are often poured onto a metal pan, which completely blocks most radio signals. Some solid foam insulation and some fiberglass insulation used in roofs or exterior walls have foil backing, which can reduce transmittance. Energy efficient windows and metal window screens are also very effective at blocking radio signals. Some materials have peaks in their absorption spectra, which decrease signal strength.

Building or Dwelling Size

Large buildings, such as warehouses, hospitals, and factories, often lack cellular reception. Low signal strength also tends to occur in underground areas (such as basements, and in shops and restaurants located towards the centre of shopping malls).In these cases, an external antenna is usually used.

Multipath Interference

Even in urban areas (which usually have strong cellular signals throughout), there are often dead zones caused by destructive interference of waves.These usually have an area of a few blocks and will usually only affect one of the two frequency ranges used by cell phones. This happens because different wavelengths of the different frequencies interfere destructively at different points. Directional antennas can be helpful at overcoming this issue since they can be placed at points of constructive interference and aligned in a way to prevent a possible destructive signal (see Multipath interference for more details).

Diffraction and General Attenuation

The longer wavelengths have the advantage of being able to diffract to a greater degree, so are less reliant on line of sight to obtain a good signal, but still attenuate significantly. Because the frequencies that cell phones use are too high to reflect off the ionosphere as shortwave radio waves do, cell phone waves cannot travel via the ionosphere. (see Diffraction and Attenuation for more details).

Different operating frequencies

Repeaters are available for all the different GSM frequency bands. Some repeaters will handle different types of networks (such as multi-mode GSM and UMTS). Repeater systems are available for certain Satellite phone systems, allowing the satphones to be used indoors without a clear line of sight to the satellite.