r/CellBoosters

>Hey everyone,

I’m having a frustrating issue with my T-Mobile G4AR gateway and hope someone here has found a workaround.

My gateway keeps automatically connecting to a tower with a stronger signal, but that tower is extremely congested (speeds drop to 15down / 3up during evening time).
There is another tower that is actually closer, much less congested, and gives way better speeds when the gateway occasionally hooks into it.

I even bought an external directional antenna to try and force a connection to the better tower. It works temporarily right after a reboot, but after a few hours or a even minutes, the G4AR’s internal firmware decides to switch back to the heavily congested tower because it perceives that signal as "better" or stronger overall.

Here’s my constraint: I live in an apartment, so I absolutely cannot mount the antenna outside or on the roof. It’s strictly indoors near the window.

Is there any trick to making the G4AR "stick" to the specific tower?
Or am I completely out of luck with the stock carrier firmware?

If there's no way to fix this on the G4AR, would upgrading to a third-party gateway (like SUNCOMM SE06) with PCI/tower locking be my only real solution to swap the SIM into?

Appreciate any advice or tips!

Hi Folks,

I'm going to be video podcasting from a local park. The cell reception is spotty. I'll be setting up at a picnic table, using either a phone or laptop.

I'm thinking a MIMO antenna and a Hotspot should do the trick to give me sufficient signal strength for a reliable zoom connection to a cell phone.

Any recommendations for an inexpensive but adequate antenna & a Hotspot to connect it to? All powered by a cell-phone power-pack. Carrier is Verizon by way of Xfinity.

Ideally stuff that I can get cheap on Amazon Prime Days (i.e., now).

Thanks very much,

Miles