Vodafone Sure Signal Review

Hikers and mountaineers often complain about poor or non-existent mobile phone coverage in the hills. It's true that without line of sight to a phone mast a signal is unlikely. Summits are often okay, valleys out of the question. The same problem applies to those of us who live in fairly remote area. (Very remote if you come from a city. I once had someone driving to my house turn back and phone me from the nearest town. He hadn't lost his way, as often happens, but, as he put it, "I hadn't seen a house for miles, no-one could live that far out"). Although I've had a mobile phone for over a decade I've rarely used it until recently and virtually never receive any phone calls because I've given the number to very few people as there was no signal at home (my partner did find a few places in the house next to windows where she could receive and send text messages - the signal wasn't strong enough for voice calls). However after acquiring a smartphone on a contract (to use on the Pacific Northwest Trail) after years of a basic phone on pay as you go I began to resent having hundreds of "free" minutes left over each month because I couldn't use the phone at home whilst spending money on landline calls. Now I have discovered an answer to this, which might be of interest to anyone else who can't get much of a phone signal at home. This is the Vodafone Sure Signal, which boosts the signal using your broadband connection. You need a 3G phone - I have the HTC Desire - and, according to Vodafone, a minimum 1mb broadband connection. My broadband rarely reaches more than 950kb (another disadvantage of being in a remote place) but that hasn't been a problem. The Sure Signal works really well and my smartphone works fine at home, both for making and receiving calls and connecting with the Internet. It's easy to set up - just plug it into the route and a power socket - and doesn't take up much desk space, being tall and narrow. I like it very much.