Cellular amplifier, cellular repeater or GSM repeater: are they the same thing?

A kind reader asks whether cellular amplifier, cellular repeater and GSM repeater are synonyms or indicate different products.

Good question, there is a lot of confusion on websites and forums, often different companies use different terms.

To make a long story short: yes, cellular amplifier, cellular repeater, GSM repeater are the same thing. Other synonyms are signal amplifiers, cellular signal repeaters, cellular amplifiers, and so on.

Many people, however, use the expression "cellular repeater" or "signal repeater" actually referring to telephone operators' masts or towers. To avoid confusion, the correct name for the latter is Base Radio Stations (SRBs, BTS in English, Base Transceiver Stations). If you want to learn more about this, take a look at how does the cellular network works?

The job of a cellular repeater or cellular amplifier (we get it, they are synonyms) is to enable the phone to talk to its operator's base radio stations.

Communication otherwise difficult, in the case of remote locations, where the distance between us and the radio base station is considerable, or if there is a forest, mountainous relief, or many buildings nearby.

The other problem that a cellular amplifier can solve is the absence of signal on the cell phone inside the house because of the materials it is built with: concrete, stone, and metal in particular are materials that significantly hinder the passage of the signal.

We refer to the article dedicated to the office cellular repeater.

Let us also recall that the world of cellular amplifier can be divided into two large families: GSM repeaters for calls, which work precisely on the frequencies for calls (900 and 1800 MHz) and GSM repeaters for calls + 3G or 4G Internet. 

If you need any elucidation, please feel free to contact us, we will be glad to meet you!