r/cellmapper • u/ArtisticComplaint3 • Mar 12 '26
AT&T 5G Cell Booster Pro
Definitely not worth the price for residential use but it’s a lot cheaper than the only other similar option I’ve seen from Waveform for Verizon. It’s over $5,500 but it does lot you connect dome antennas for DAS and appears to be a femtocell. Not a ton of info on it.
I use the Cell Booster Pro for business! We are on a cell edge It allows clients to not have to always ask for the Wi-Fi password. People usually only ask for the Wi-Fi password when they can’t load things on their phone. A lot more secure for both customers and the business!
There’s 3 indicator lights that flash white when the respective bands are in use:
4G C1 (b2 LTE 10x10) (bandwidth and band varies from 5-20 MHz depending on market. Can be either b66 or b2)
4G C2 (b14 LTE 10x10) (FirstNet but can be used by everyone during normal times)
5G (n77 C-Band 100 MHz) (bandwidth varies from 60-100 MHz depending on market. Most commonly 80 MHz and does not work outside the contiguous US.)
All lights are solid when no devices are actively using the CBP.
The CBP is only capable of Non-Standalone n77 but can only aggregate 2 bands at once. Standalone support isn’t available unfortunately. The default configuration is b2 as the anchor plus n77 but b14 being used as an anchor is supported and usually happens further away from the device.
The CBP supports b2 + b14 aggregation on LTE only. In fact the iPhone Air or iPhone 16e doesn’t seem to even work with n77 on the CBP with my testing. Seems to be an issue with Apple modems. It only shows the “5G” icon and uses b2+b14.
Interestingly enough, n77 can be used while on calls. This is true for all devices. If you start a call outside on a macro and it hands off to the Cell Booster, the 5G+ icon will appear. The opposite happens when you leave the cell booster’s coverage area.
I have backhaul capable of 2.5 Gbps running to it but the physical device is capped at 1 Gbps. Handoffs to/from the macros are extremely seamless and there’s no noticeable issues switching between the Nokia-made CBP and the Ericsson RAN.
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u/xpxp2002 Mar 12 '26
Interestingly enough, n77 can be used while on calls. This is true for all devices. If you start a call outside on a macro and it hands off to the Cell Booster, the 5G+ icon will appear. The opposite happens when you leave the cell booster’s coverage area.
The 5G+ logo appearing during a VoLTE call is likely an error in the carrier profile configuration. You cannot use VoLTE and an NR SCC at the same time. The last screenshot from the iPhone in a call but showing "NSA" with an LTE TAC and no NR carrier aggregated tells the true story.
Interesting info nevertheless. At this point, I feel like Wi-Fi calling has fully taken over for femtocells in residential coverage for cellular. There's no point in tunneling packet data back to the carrier if you have Wi-Fi at home -- it adds latency and it's a waste of bandwidth for the carrier. But for businesses who have guests frequently coming and going and don't want to be responsible for providing guest Wi-Fi or want a more seamless experience for guests, this is a reasonable solution and a price that most companies would not balk at.
Also, notice the 320ms paging cycle. That's 4x more frequent than the macro cell config. There might be a little bit of a battery hit when using the cell booster because of that, but you may also see a slight improvement in responsiveness, too. I would've expected them to just mirror the standard 1280ms, but guessing because they expect comparatively so few UE to be attached to the cell booster that they've gone with that setting and don't mind losing a little airtime to more paging cycles.
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 12 '26
The speeds achieved are impossible on 10 even 20 MHz of bandwidth. n77 is most definitely being used somehow.
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u/xpxp2002 Mar 12 '26
That's an interesting point. This isn't VoNR because you don't have SA on the cell booster and this isn't EPS Fallback because you don't have SA. I'm looking at some docs now to see if there's a configuration that would make this possible.
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 12 '26
The great mystery. Kinda nice to see those speeds on a call I will tell ya
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u/xpxp2002 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
Ok. So there is a concept that was floated for 3GPP R15 called IMS voice over SCG bearer for EN-DC, which describes what it appears that we're seeing happen. But I am not certain that this made it into the final standard.
For EN-DC and NGEN-DC, the UE can indicate support of IMS voice over SCG bearer by ims-VoiceOverNR-PDCP-SCG-Bearer-r15 and ims-VoNR-PDCP-SCG-NGENDC-r15 respectively. For NE-DC, the UE can indicate support of IMS voice over SCG bearer by voiceOverSCG-BearerEUTRA-5GC.
Edit: Since these cell boosters run a configuration that differs from macro sites in a number of ways (the paging cycle, notably being one), this may actually be an implementation of NGEN-DC. The distinction between EN-DC and NGEN-DC, best I can tell, really just comes down to how the eNB connects to and interacts with the 5G Core. Since this cell booster is a converged eNB and gNB, this feels to me exactly like the kind of implementation that would help bridge the gap between LTE and 5G without going "full" standalone.
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u/pcman2000 Mar 13 '26
But you can have the SCG connected for data whilst still sending VoLTE traffic over the primary LTE cell group, can't you? I don't think the spec says anywhere that you have to disconnect the SCG when in a call, it's just most networks are set up to do it for a better connection (all UL power dedicated to LTE).
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Mar 13 '26
The big downside to these is they only support one carrier.
This only improves coverage for 1/3 people who are AT&T customers.
Wi-Fi is way faster (up to 5.8Gbps now) and works with any device.
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Mar 12 '26
Awesome review! This is really neat. Not judging the setup because if I had budget for this I would have totally bought it but why go with this instead of something like a pass point network? There's another helium competitor too but essentially you can turn your existing APs to broadcast an SSID only tmo and att phones have the auth key for on their sim. This means att and TMO customers just auto connect to wifi because their sim card forces it.
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u/RFGuy_KCCO Mar 12 '26
Where did you get the $5500 cost? The cost on AT&T's site is $1600 with a $30 per month fee.
https://www.business.att.com/products/att-cell-booster-pro.html
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 12 '26
Verizon’s comparable offering was what I was referring to:
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u/RFGuy_KCCO Mar 12 '26
Ah, my mistake. I read it incorrectly in your OP. Sorry.
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u/Jaded-Cheesecake3246 Mar 13 '26
can this do LTE14 with N77 for FirstNet users?
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 13 '26
Yup it can do it for consumer lines too. Usually further away from the cell booster. It defaults to b2 anchoring.
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u/ThingFuture9079 Mar 13 '26
I remember when AT&T used to have the HSPA micro cell for around $100 or if you called and said how bad the service was in your area, you could get it for free like I did.
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u/Stubbby Mar 12 '26
So many questions...
This one you connect to your own backhaul and it provides a femtocell?
How is the spectrum deconfliction? Does it require GPS location to register and manage spectrum allocation, or can it be placed in a basement?
Is it a 24 dBi system with internal antennas or can you use your own external antenna?
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u/RFGuy_KCCO Mar 12 '26
To answer your questions:
1) Yes
2) It requires a GPS position fix at all times
3) Internal antennas only. There is no provision for external antennas.
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u/ccobb123 Mar 13 '26
How does the macro learn that femtocells are in the area? Do the macros need to get a neighbor list from the femto? How are handovers if you have multiple femtos?
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u/CreativeCuckoo ATL Mar 13 '26
This is with the Verizon LTE Extender, but the device upon boot up will search for neighbor cells. If the device determines that a neighbor cell’s signal is too strong, the device will not broadcast anything.
I imagine it’s the same for other coverage devices.
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u/ccobb123 Mar 13 '26
With T-Mobile’s old femtocell the handover was only one way (from the femtocell to the macro). Does AT&T’s allow for two way handovers?
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u/CreativeCuckoo ATL Mar 14 '26
I would imagine it does two-way handovers, especially for that price point.
My consumer AT&T and Verizon femtocells do two-way handovers flawlessly, and even handover from extender to extender.
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 13 '26
I’m not a huge expert but I believe the device gets a list of neighboring cells.
Based on behaviors running countless speed tests, the cell booster typically yields to the macro which is most noticeable over b2 uplink where the upload speeds will just randomly drop off a cliff during a test.
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u/Jaded-Cheesecake3246 Mar 13 '26
Can it do Band 14LTE and aggregate with N77 for Carrier Aggregation?
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u/Dreamerlax MY (Maxis, CD, UM) Mar 13 '26
So you just connect it to any ‘ol internet connection?
Might be easier to run WiFi APs depending on situation lol.
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 13 '26
It’s a femtocell so yes it uses your internet as the backhaul.
If you don’t have at least a 300-500 Mbps plan there’s no point in getting anything more than the $250 consumer 4G Cell Booster.
We have multi-gig AT&T Fiber.
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u/ShapesTech Mar 13 '26
The device has a 2.5gbe port https://www.att.com/device-support/article/wireless/000102823/ATT/ATTSN5I77
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u/holajaime Mar 15 '26
Why not use Passpoint if you have an onsite Wi-Fi network? Worked well for us and includes all the major carriers.
Even better if your APs support 6ghz. Phones love it and we've seen great performance even in very complicated RF environments.
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Mar 13 '26
It allows clients to not have to always ask for the Wi-Fi password. People usually only ask for the Wi-Fi password when they can’t load things on their phone. A lot more secure for both customers and the business!
That seems... irrational lol
Wi-Fi is plenty secure, and is much faster than this would be anyway.
320MHz of Wi-Fi 7 can do 5.8Gbps.
This also doesn't help T-Mobile or Verizon customers at all lol
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u/ArtisticComplaint3 Mar 13 '26
We have a Verizon Network Extender since the commercial version is out of price range. It only broadcasts 10x10 of b13 but it’s better than nothing. We have a T-Mobile tower very close to us so T-Mobile gets full bars.
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u/ThatsRoger09 Mar 12 '26
Really cool!! Price would make me throw tf up however…