Mobile phone home booster?

[#1]

Thanks. The having an active account part is the bothersome part. Its increasingly likely I'll have a punt for a box in store and get them to tell me if a PAYG account will work. I don't mind feeding it a few quid once a month or so to keep it working for my 2 Plusnet phone accounts. Be way easier if Plusnet just allowed us to buy an EE Signal box from them and use it!

<hint hint Plusnet CS>

[#2]

Hi,

I've just been through this process and can confirm that, once you have the signal box, all you need is a pay as you go SIM on EE (they're like £1 from a supermarket or just order a free one online). You don't need to top it up, just call EE technical support (I went through on the poor signal/unable to make calls option). They will register your details against the SIM and can then activate the signal box. I specifically asked if I don't top up and let my SIM lapse (90 days of inactivity) will the signal box stop working. She said no you just need the account to set it up, they are independent from there. So I now have 4 bars on Plusnet Mobile around the house. Woop.

[#3]

Excellent news, I had decided to use my landline for calls in the house but its a bit of a pain. Just need to source a cheap box now!

[#4]

I bought a new box from an EE shop because I was unsure how they would handle re-registering an old box - plus if the whole experiment had failed I'd have been able to return it :). If you can get one that's not been registered that's probably ideal - I'm sure they can re-register a box, but I haven't been able to confirm that.

[#5]

Thinking about it I guess an old box that's already registered might just work (once it's synced up and all that stuff). They don't restrict a box to a specific internet connection.

[#6]

From EE's help page :

If you change your home broadband supplier, router or move house then the Signal Box will stop working and the green light will flash quickly.

You'll need to call customers services to get it re-activated. This is just security feature to help us prevent fraud.

I'd guess that due to DPA they wouldn't be able to change any details relating to the box, they really don't seem to want people to sell them on.

[#7]

Just to keep you advised, plusnet won't offer support for signal booster boxes at present as they are not a service we offer ourselves. We won't be able to offer you any guarantees regarding EE femtocells or any other similar technology, but of course we'll announce if that should change in the future.

[#8]

Fair enough - I guess that means you just need to get an unregistered box and a PAYG SIM to register it against, as I did.

[#9]

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adrens wrote:

As for WiFi calling - you can on some handsets flash the EE version of the firmware, such as the Samsung S5, then get them to activate it on your SIM - it works I have done it but you need to happy to tinker with your phone.

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I don't know why EE have chosen to do wifi-calling this way (apart from ensuring you have to buy a phone off them!) . I am on Three, and they have just introduced wifi-calling on compatible iPhones (on iOS 10.2), and it is just a carrier settings update

[#10]

EE wifi calling works on iPhones bought from other vendors as Apple do not let carriers/networks impose such limits.

EE impose the limits on android phones because they can but I expect Google will follow Apple's stance with the pixel range.

[#11]

I have found solution to bad signal at home on plus net and it works ee signal box I signed up to a great plusnet deal but sadly like many others as soon as walk in the front door in a old somerset house I loose all ee signal thought this wouldn't be too bad as at work most the day so would still get calls etc but it drove me nuts, I was going to leave plusnet as no sign of wifi calling and actually had moved one contract off it but then with a bit of help from google I found out that ee do a signal box for home I tried contacting them to find out more about them and if they would actually help plusnet customers - at the end of the day ee, plusnet and bt are all the same company near enough, their staff were unsure but as also being a ee customer they agreed to send me a signal box to try it, and it works really well, all my plusnet phones now have full signal so if anyone in your house has a ee contract as well as plusnet then get your self one,  mine is a Cisco Residential signal box USC3331 I can't find out how many phones it will support but I believe it maybe about 5 works a treat so far only had it a few hours thanks EE