Rural Cell Phone Woes

[Wood Nymph]

I desperately wish that I could figure out how to get cell phone coverage inside my house without spending a boatload of money on an outside antenna, coaxial cable, amplifier and transmitter. My research so far on such systems has come up only with equipment and installation that we cannot afford.

My neighbors on the west side of this little valley (perhaps 1/4 mile away) can get cell coverage inside their homes with the one cell phone company that services our very rural area. I cannot get reception inside my home with that company, and I live on the east side of this little valley. There is just one cell phone tower in our area, on the other side of the forest. Cell phones from other companies do not work in our area at all.

I can no longer afford to keep both land line and cell phone. I would like to scrap our land line, as having a cell phone is a nice safety item. But I cannot scrap the land line unless I can resolve the cell phone issue for a price I can afford.

I have looked into antennas that you can buy to add to a cell phone (they screw into a slot on the cell phone). Sadly, none of them fit the cell phones we have. Worse, I contacted the cell phone company, and the employee I spoke with informed me that none of their phones are compatible with the screw in antennas. I searched on-line for add-on cell phone antennas that work with that company's phones and also came up with nothing.

So, are we screwed? LOL!

Surely there is a way to get the signal inside the house without spending a grand or two. But as yet I have not figured out what that way might be.

I should probably add that we have satellite Internet, so services like Skype (VOIPs) do not work here. We can hear the people on the other end, but they can't hear us. This is due to the slower upload speeds on our satellite Internet and faster download speeds.

Help???

Thanks!

[Nox_Mortus]

the only thing I ca think ofoff the top of my head is to get a satellite phone, but hose rent cheap, you might be able to pick up a used one for about $300, and I have no idea how much service for those costs.