slightly OT: solve my mobile problem

[The Natural Philosopher]

The problem:

I need a mobile phone when out for emergencies. I have a cheap voice only Nokia with a Truphone PAYG sim.

Once people know you have a mobile they isnist on sending SMS texts and phoning you in it these days

It doesnt work at home.

It works even less where I am moving to (complete RF black hole. Only satellite TV and 5Mbps ADSL2 broadband there).

There appear to be some adapters that use the broadband to proivide femto cells keyed to your phone.

Alternatively I have a voip phone keyed to sipgate, and of course a landline, if I could redirect calls to that.

I make almost no mobile calls, dont use or have a smart phone, and simply want to get text messages and voice calls on the mobile number.

What's the best way, and the best provider to use?

I have checked all of the main people and none gives any signal in the new property location.

[Andy Burns]

But the MVNOs don't offer femtocells, you'd have to be direct with one of the network operators EE/O2/Voda/Three

[GB]

What happens if you leave a voicemail introductory message asking people to call that number? Is that too simple?

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Might not be much help but: "Modern" phones (and I don't know how far back you need to go) have a jolly handy feature I discovered recently even before my 15 yr old son found it!

It's in the menu/settings (on Samsung) as mobile over Wi-Fi or some such wording. It uses any locally connected wifi signal as a break-out/in from cellphone network so even if you have zero cellphone signal, as long as you have a wifi from your broadband and your cellphone provider supports it you get incoming and outgoing cellphone coverage. Calls in/out are as per your regular call plan you're just shifting the point at which you connect to the network.

I've found it invaluable now I'm 24/7 "on call" for an elderly relative as mobile now gets a signal in the depths of our shop, at home where signal was intermittent and every other network black-hole I may be spending time in.

Need to switch the feature on and it then takes around 24 hours for network provider to activate it. No idea what ports it escapes on but it just works exceedingly well.

- Pete

[Andy Burns]

you could use **62*9999999999# to divert whenever the mobile is unreachable (turned off/not in coverage) to your voip/sip number, then your mobile will ring if it's reachable, but your home phone will ring when the mobile can't.

where 9999999 is the divert destination

[Andy Burns]

make that "to your voip/pstn number"

[Martin Brown]

The other option with some carriers is to use mobile phone over wifi connectivity when you are at home. We did this when in the Scottish borders sat under a mast but which carried neither of our networks. The cottage came with wifi internet though and that worked fine @ 2Mbps.

If it has to work with a basic phone you need to talk to them about getting a femotcell installed. Smartphones give you other options - maybe some of the newer dumb phones with Wifi do too?

[Andy Burns]

But not on a dumbphone, and often only when you buy e.g. a phone from EE and use it on EE, or from O2 and use it on O2, as it requires their "blessed" firmware to do it.

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Both mine and my sons unlocked non-specific phones work with EE sims no problem. Going to try 'er Galaxy S3 when I get in to see if it now also works.

[Martin Brown]

I think you are right that to do it you need a phone and SIM card from one of the actual suppliers of mobile phone technology not a reseller.

You can get some pretty good contract SIM only deals these days and CEX will flog you a locked to network dumb phone for next to nothing.

[dennis]

My phone uses wifi if its available.

Its a service provided by the main operators for free.

Shame you can't read this because you being an idiot you have put me in your killfile. I just ignore anyone/post I don't want to reply to.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Is that true for all services? If so a change of provider is indicated

[The Natural Philosopher]

reaklkly not a bad idea at all

But wouldnt work for sms

>

[Andy Burns]

EE call theirs signalbox, I've have fitted several for businesses, no probems, the old models were quite chunky and ugly though.

I think O2 call theirs for home users TuGo and I remember hearing on the radio someone complaining they were ceasing the service.

vodafone sell theirs as suresignal

and three sell them as homesignal.

[charles]

for Vodafone, you simply buy one. Perhaps on ebay.

[Roger Hayter]

TuGo was a VOIP app that joined the o2 network via WiFi. I don't know if they have a small scale hardware solution now, but they don't advertise one to consumers. Obviously large firms have a bespoke solution.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But it doesnt work with truphone...

WEll visited the property just now and I get a couple of bars up in the garden, so maybe in the upstairs bedroom/office there will be enough.

[Martin Brown]

You may have to make a cradle to sit the phone high up in the window to get enough signal but that isn't too bad.

Don't do what I did and buy one of the loop aerials that is supposed to relay signal from a remote high gain antenna to the phone (Solway used to offer them for about £40 but have discontinued). They don't work.

Nothing wrong with a high gain antenna for mobile phone signals on Mifi though - you can work anything line of sight out to the 35 mile limit with a suitable 3G fixed antenna (about £10 on eBay).

[charles]

You can only use it with a Vodafone account.

[Andy Burns]

Thinking about it, the EE business version does work with MVNOs e.g. a customer is on EE and has multiple femtocells on site, for a while I was on plusnetmobile which piggy-backs on EE, I would hear the extra "bleep" at start of calls which indicates the call is going over the IPSEC tunnel, I've moved back to tescomobile now though.