While the National Broadband Plan seeks ways to deliver service to rural U.S. areas, there are plenty of city dwellers plagued with spotty service, even within the same house. Carriers have offered fixed-base units for home use called Femto cells, but a small company located in southern California offers the first portable device designed for consumers.
The CelLynx 5BARz Road Warrior can be used with any carrier and with any device to extend a cell phone signals to their maximum five bars.
The current demand for new bandwidth-hungry devices is outpacing the carriers’ ability to feed them. Cisco says mobile traffic has gone up 160 percent within the past year and more than 20 percent of US households have given up their landlines in favor of cell phones. With growing reliance on mobile devices, strong signals become critical.
"You might have five bars over there on your cell phone and only three bars in the next room," CelLynx chief marketing officer Barry George said. Anyone who has walked around the house or out to the furthest corner of the yard trying to find just the right spot for reception knows how annoying this problem can be.
"We guarantee five bars of signal strength anywhere you have a signal, even if that signal is too weak to make a call," George told TechNewsDaily. "And you get your maximum data throughput."
The company’s 5BARz technology extends even the weakest signals to full signal strength, and make Internet speeds as much as 20 times faster, George says, including 3G in areas with weak coverage. The result: fewer dropped calls, better reception, and faster mobile Internet.
The 5BARz Road Warrior is designed for portability. It can be used from any location where power is available, requires no rooftop or window antennas, and can provide a full signal to up to five devices. Once the connection has been made, users may wander away from the device. Any 12-volt outlet will work, including those in cars and boats.
"Signals bounce a long way on the water, but boaters can't hold it," George said. "5BARz gives five bars even out on the water, [which is] especially good in case of emergency or if you just need to know when dinner is." George also uses his 5BARz at airline gates, spots notorious for no coverage.
The Road Warrior provides full signal strength to multiple devices. It is "carrier agnostic" meaning it will work with any wireless carrier signal and with any device using a cellular signal. Priced at $299 with no additional service charge.
Cellynx will release fixed-based products which will provide a signal throughout an entire home later this year.
