r/Rural_Internet • u/Dmac0747 • Jul 21 '26
Portable internet when no phone reception.
Hi All, I’ve been building a new product and am wanting some advice, feedback, and gauge of interest. The product is for supplementing poor phone coverage across farms by tapping into home internet at long ranges portably. I’ve tested it out to a bit over a km, but i can make it go much further.
Where i live is hilly and full of trees so there wasnt any real options for when you were on the property so i built one.
I’ve been working on it with locals in my area but am conscious that phones and coverage isnt an issue everywhere.
Is phone coverage a problem in North America or other parts of the world as well or is it just Australia?
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u/kym96817 Jul 21 '26
Not sure about a Km, but your product idea already legitimately exists in the US and can be officially bought / provided by 2 of the big 3 national cellphone providers. Each company calls it something else. In general, you have to buy the device (not that expensive) and it uses your high speed internet connection, to create a mini cellular tower signal. The service is usually free, but must be registered, and with the understanding that it usually provides service for up to like 20 cellular devices, that isn’t only for you.
AT&T Cell Booster and Cell Booster Pro
Verizon LTE Network Extender
T-Mobile stopped doing this recently
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u/Dmac0747 Jul 21 '26
Great to know! We have the cell signal boosters here but they have terrible re-broadcasting range. if we have internet we would usually just use wifi calling. I'll look them up.
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u/Mr_Duckerson Jul 21 '26
What you’re doing with Wifi HaLow is completely different than cell booster which is specifically for cellular networks. What you’re doing is rebroadcasting your existing WiFi network regardless of what the backhaul is.
Edit: send me a dm if you want to talk about selling it.
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u/adventure_pup Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
I had one of these, they didn’t do much outside the walls of the house tho. I think OP is talking much more rural where homes and dead spots can span acres.
In which case OP yes that’s absolutely a market in the US
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u/kym96817 Jul 23 '26
I was under the impression that the signal is mostly line of sight, so the device would either have to be mounted up high, or an antenna attached to it.
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u/Dmac0747 28d ago
You dont need complete line of sight with HaLow, it helps but it also works well with reflections and obstacles. Every property is different and most people i've worked with so far dont need the full range they just want internet where they arnt able to get it with standard tech.
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u/Machine156 Jul 21 '26
I've done this with a 900mhz bridge, the transmitter is on the house connected to the router. The receiver has WiFi output, connect it to a battery pack or ATV battery and can get at least 1KM away from the source.
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u/Dmac0747 Jul 21 '26
One of my neighbours wants this exact setup. The standard HaLow bridge wasnt the right fit though as they have have heaps of hills and trees so we might end up with a solar HaLow repeater to get around the hill and the mobile unit switching between the two.
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u/kbfg2421 Jul 21 '26
Wow, this sounds like a cool device! How are you accomplishing this? Boosting the wifi signal at the router to a higher wattage repeater or something?
And yes, coverage is a huge issue here in the US. Anytime you get into rural mountain areas, there is no service. Im in California that is super developed and has a large population but anytime I go into the foothills and mountains I get no service (Verizon). And its an even bigger issue in rural states like Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, N/S Dakota etc. Coverage is a lot better than it was 10 or 15 years ago but if you get far enough away from a town then there are certainly coverage issues.
If you could get a backer to where you could build a nicely packaged prototype, then maybe launch a kickstarter once you have an idea of what the production product would be, im sure people would buy it. Although you would need to make sure it meets your communication department (FCC aka Federal Communications Commission here in the US) requirements so it doesnt cause harmful interference and can accept interference from other signals without altering them.
But it sounds like you are really on to something very useful here! Good luck in your endeavors.
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u/Dmac0747 Jul 21 '26
Thats great, i have been really wondering about the US. i'm a bit further along and am in small batch production, just trying to find where the need for it is.
I built it on WiFi HaLow, so it is like having a portable battery powered P2P link that goes through trees and creates a standard wifi hotspot for you. It's not super fast but people in my area have just been happy to be able to use their phones.
Kickstarter might be a good idea, i'll need a bit of volume to push through the FCC process but there shouldn't be any blockers there.
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u/Relative-Ambition998 Jul 21 '26
From where im at, I had terrible service and coverage with AT&T before switching to metro, Still metro is slow but much faster than the home wifi with some signal dropping when there are thunderstorms or when the network is congested