how to find cell reception, without using a cell phone?
January 20th, 2010 | 
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Looking to get new cell phone service and I live out in the country a ways. I want to test how well various services work reception wise at my home and at my work. I don’t want to buy a phone until I know it will work in the places I want to use it. Is there a device that can show cell reception signals for various network frequencies. What I’m looking for would be similar to the wifi detectors you can get for a laptop that show wifi signals without having to use your computer.
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I am not aware of a device that can do that but…
For tmobile, there is a coverage map that is pretty accurate on tmobile.com. Just pop in your address, and hit search to see your area.
http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/
For other carriers, I don’t know.. i checked out thier websites and couldn’t find any pesonal coverage checks. For WiFi, make sure you show that there will be 2 or more bars of signal in your area. Anything data transfer below that would be really slow and possibly not even connect to data (that is with ANY carrier)
Oh, and by the WAY you might like to know that Tmobile is launching a new service called UMA. All you need is: high speed broadband internet service (your internet provider @ home) a router, and a UMA phone. You can get the router and UMA phone from Tmobile. It turns your house into a tower/Wifi network. With the UMA plan, you can make unlimited calls using any Wifi connection (your home -obviously, airports, coffee shops, a friends house, +etc) and it connects to the Wifi networks automatically. AND if you start a call @ home on your WiFi network and leave the house, your phone will seamlessly hop off your wifi onto a tower without disturbing the call AND your whole call will still be free. If you live in a house with spotty signal, this is your best bet! Dude, you really gotta check it out!
http://www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com/
Hmm, don’t think I’ve ever seen one marketed for personal use. Closest thing would be a network analyzer that can pick up the control channel of the different carriers and give you all the info you need, like received signal strength indication(RSSI) and such. But that costs plenty, last I checked.