Help with external antenna

Lee McAliley

1392 Bouquet Dr. Unit A

Upland, CA 91786

(702) 275-9367

Hooverdog@Gmail.com

16th April 2022

T-Mobile

Dear T-Mobile Customer Service,

I am hoping that you can forward this letter or direct me to one of your talented engineers or technicians that can assist me.

When I step outside my home I receive a strong cellular signal, however inside my home, a condominium built in the eighties, I do not have enough signal to make, receive or get through a conversation without hearing the phrase (are you still there). My house is apparently constructed as a faraday cage. 

This happens so frequently that I have called upon your kind customer service line several times. Each time someone walks me through resetting the connections on my end maybe even resetting a connection on your end but none of that helps. In my last conversation, it was suggested that perhaps a device could be plugged into my router to solve these issues. This only brings me back to the true problem I am trying to solve. Useable, reliable consistent broadband internet service at my home. 

In the many years since these overpriced condominiums were built, they never once allowed anything of newer technology past a phone line to be installed to the entire 60+ units in our neighborhood. Looking at the fiber and cable lines running down the street directly in front of my house I begged and even tried to bribe one of them to help me. After many years of being told, just hold on we will get to your address any day now. I was finally told that the owners of the property or condo association or both had declined access to our units. 

I only have access to a DSL line that is on a good day would be barely useable. This week my service has varied between 0.15 Mbps and 6.13 Mbps download on any given day. It is horrible service and I have no way of getting around it. Websites load like an old dial-up modem sometimes. 

I can not move, this house was purchased by my Mother when she moved back to the area after my Dad passed away. I moved in with her a few years ago when her health began to get worse. Both of us have health issues and it was best if we looked after each other. 

I have a medical device that from time to time connects to my pacemaker/defibrillator and sends the information to my cardiologist, it uses a cellular connection to do so. I also have a medical device that records my weight and blood pressure each day and sends that information to my primary doctor. It also uses a cellular connection. Both of these units frequently fail to connect and send the information where they need to go, resulting in annoying automated calls to check on me at any hour of the day I did not intend to be awake. 

My mother also has one of those lifeline-type devices to call for help if she falls and we cannot get her off the floor or any other medical issues. It also uses a cellular connection and so far we have not had that fail but it would be a big deal if it did.

What I am getting at is that I moved to T-Mobile because I was hoping that you could provide useable home internet to my home and a way to get that sweet 5G service into my home. I purchased two new phones and was given a hot spot device until a home internet device was available. The hot spot is unusable due to the previously mentioned lack of service inside my home. I have been paying $50 a month for a service I can not use. This disappoints me greatly. 

I have tried using the option of WiFi calling, I have tried turning it off, and I have resorted to turning off the WiFi to my phone in order to make a phone call.  You can understand that I can not ask my 81-year-old mother to go outside to make a phone call or turn on and off WiFi access. My internet service sucks. 

I asked about an external antenna to bring some of that sweet 5G service into my house. Allowing me to use my phone as a phone and hopefully let me use one of your fine home internet devices. This would fix all of my problems and I could stop paying Frontier nearly $80 a month for unacceptable internet. 

I was told this was not available. I look online and there are several options but I do not know if any of them work with your service and which ones are a pointless waste of money. Can one of your talented engineers or signal specialists kindly let me know if you have such a device that you could sell me or if there is a unit I could purchase from another source and what details are needed to select the correct antenna? Price is an issue since we are both on very fixed incomes. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Atentamente,

Lee McAliley