Wireless Carriers Want To Muscle In On Cell-Phone Signal Boosters. Charges Ahead?

Do you use a cell-phone signal booster, either in your vehicle or in a building?

The cell phone carriers would just as soon you didn't, and a trade organization representing wireless companies has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). demanding stricter regulations of signal boosters.

Both AT&T and Verizon have filed papers supporting the complaint, which was made by the trade group, CTIA-The Wireless Association.

The industry is asking that “the use of signal boosters be coordinated with and controlled by commission licensees and the sale and marketing of such devices be limited to authorized parties.”

Cellular carriers claim that the boosters interfere with wireless networks and disrupt service to other customers. Essentially, they want to control booster design, authorization and marketing. The boosters cut into the carriers' own efforts to market similar products.

Companies that manufacture boosters say they move is nothing short of a campaign to put them out of business. More than 1 million boosters are now in use, it's estimated, with many of them used by farmers and other rural residents who live too far from cell networks for consistent voice or data service.

The underlying problem is that cell companies have not increased wireless capacity enough to handle the proliferation of smart phones, much less the new bandwidth-hungry tablets hitting the market.

Here's a short article in this morning's New York Times that goes into more detail.