Signal booster question.....

[dianalynn]

I purchased a wilson cell phone booster home 4g for my cabin. My galaxy s7 edge finds it and I get 4g with a reading of -90dbm. I can make calls and everything. However, my tab s2 will not recognize it and connect to it. It also has the same reading. All i have is an x where the signal is. Ive contacted samsung and verizon. No one knows why I cant get service. Does anyone on here have any ideas as to why?

 

[svim]

Does your model of Wilson cell booster have an external antenna or is it self-contained inside its casing? If it is just an internal antenna, is the Wilson device located near an outward facing window? Cell boosters need both a broadband connection and a steady GPS signal.
Of course that doesn't explain why your S7 is getting a good signal but your Tab is not. Try installing Network Cell Info on your Tab and see if it can give you any solid numbers as to what's going on.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfolite
Have you tried just toggling Airplane Mode off and on? Also, when you contacted Samsung and Verizon what did they tell you to try?

 

[dianalynn]

View attachment 112657 View attachment 112658 View attachment 112659 My booster has an outside antenna, and an antenna which is in the cabin. Doesn't have to be near a window. the rang for it is 5000 Sq feet. My husband has at&t galaxy s5 active and he gets 4good service with his phone. Like I said, my s7 edge pick it up and now my apple ipad pro does along with lg gpad 8.3. the Galaxy tablet s2 won't. and I have had all kinds of network readers 8nstalled on it. I'll take a screen shot and let you see the readingsView attachment 112653 . Verizon has no clue as to why, and samsung told me to take it to a best buy and have them refresh the firmware. Thats 80 miles from me. I can't find the firmware to flash it through Odin myself. And a factory reset did nothing.

 

[svim]

Hmmm, so tentatively ruling out your booster is a part of the problem. That was just speculation on my part anyway as a lot of people take shortcuts when initially setting up a cell signal booster.
But looking at your screen captures, I'm wondering what might be gong in with specifically with your Tab. In the first one (left most) there's a section titled 'Device Telephony' and under Phone Type it shows NONE. It should show up as CDMA (most phones are either CDMA or GSM) and at the very least show Voice capable as a Yes. While CDMA (Verizon) phones didn't utilize a SIM card, now with LTE so prevalent they often do. If there's a SIM card in your Tab 2 maybe it just needs to be re-seated:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-178759/

An alternative you might want to look into is using something like Google Hangouts to make WiFi calls (VOIP):
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-make-free-wi-fi-calls-google-hangouts-android

 

[dianalynn]

Here is a screen shot with the Sim card in it..View attachment 112666

Hmmm, so tentatively ruling your booster is a part of the problem. That was just speculation on my part anyway as a lot of people take shortcuts when initially setting up a cell signal booster.
But looking at your screen captures, I'm wondering what might be gong in with specifically with your Tab. In the first one (left most) there's a section titled 'Device Telephony' and under Phone Type it shows NONE. It should show up as CDMA (most phones are either CDMA or GSM) and at the very least show Voice capable as a Yes. While CDMA (Verizon) phones didn't utilize a SIM card, now with LTE so prevalent they often do. If there's a SIM card in your Tab 2 maybe it just needs to be re-seated:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-178759/

An alternative you might want to look into is using something like Google Hangouts to make WiFi calls (VOIP):
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-make-free-wi-fi-calls-google-hangouts-android

 

[svim]

I'm out of ideas as to what could be the problem. Along with nothing being highlighted in the 'Phone type' category, that 'Service state' item should show as green 'In-Service', not red 'Out-of-Service'. It almost sounds as if your Tab 2 has no cellular service account tied to it, but since you've already reached out to Verizon that doesn't make sense either. Could Verizon send you a new SIM card? Maybe that one is bad, or is it a working card you just temporarily borrowed from one of your other devices.

 

[dianalynn]

Here is what my LG tablet shows. There is no name in it either.

 

[svim]

Yeah, I don't know what the problem could be. Hopefully others will chime in with more solid suggestions. One thing I completely forgot to ask is if your Tab S2 works well elsewhere and the problem is just at your cabin.

(Note, you might want to use the 'Edit' button under each of your comments to delete your attachments, maybe make new ones. The current ones show more personal info than necessary. There should be a checkbox to enable 'Hide sensitive data' in the Network Cell Info app so some items get automatically greyed out.)