The IT Nerd

A couple of months ago I reviewed the SureCall Fusion2Go 3.0 in car cell phone booster. In that review I said this:

Regardless of where you purchase it the SureCall Fusion2Go is easy to install, works well, and deserves a place in your vehicle if you tend to drive into areas that have spotty cell phone coverage.

Well I’m back to review SureCall’s latest cell phone booster which is dubbed the N-Range:

Now the N-Range has a slightly different use case. This product is for someone who needs a cell phone booster for multiple vehicles. For example, a rental car. It’s also aimed  at someone who only needs to boost the signal of a single cell phone. So if you want two or more people to stay connected at all times, the Fusion2Go 3.0 would be a better option. The N-Range is made up of three parts:

An antenna that is magnetic and sits on the roof.

A phone mount that doubles as an in car antenna to rebroadcast the cell signal. It is designed to be mounted on the HVAC vents and comes with the hardware to do so. There’s also a magnetic puck that you attach to your phone to allow it to stick to the phone mount.

A 12 volt plug that powers the entire setup.

Like the FusionToGo 3.0, the setup of the N-Range is absurdly simple and you’ll be up and running in way under 10 minutes. But the real question is does it work? To find out, I drove out to a section of Caledon Ontario that has sketchy cell phone coverage and threw my iPhone XS into field test mode which would allow me to accurately measure signal strength. Now this feature is usually hidden, but if you’re interested in how to enable this on iOS, here’s an article that speaks to that. But I before I get ahead of myself, here’s a screenshot of what a good signal in my area of Toronto looks like:

The above screenshot was taken the last time I reviewed a SureCall device and it was taken near my home in Toronto. The number you’re interested in is the RSRP0 number which is – 78 dB. RSRP stands for Reference Signal Received Power which is a way of measuring cell phone signal quality. This is a decent number based on the fact that signal quality can range from -40 dB to -130 dB, with -40 being the best possible signal and -130 being the worst. In general, any result that is into the triple digits is going to cause issues with voice calls being garbled or dropped, or you will find it difficult to send or receive email or post status updates to Facebook.

Now this is what I got I Caledon before I switched on the N-Range:

You can see here that it was -109 db which is bad. Not bad enough for me to not be able to make a call. But refreshing Twitter was often problematic. Ditto for Instagram. After I switched on the N-Range and placed the phone on the mount I got this:

As you can see, the RSRP0 was -97 db. That was enough of a reduction that made things much better when I tried to refresh Instagram or Twitter. The one thing that I will note is that for best results you need to have the phone on the phone mount. As far as I am concerned, while it isn’t as powerful as the the Fusion2Go 3.0, it is still a very useful piece of kit that clearly works as advertised.

N-Range is available now at Amazon, TheSource, and SignalBoost Central. It goes for $199 USD or $249 CAD. If you fit the use case of N-Range, I would say that it deserves a place in your car without a doubt.

Last year we traveled to Newfoundland and back and along the way, we found lots of areas that had little to no cell phone signal while we were driving. That became an issue when we came across a car that had bounced off a guard rail and went into a ditch. We wanted to help and after making sure the occupants were okay, we had to drive about 10 KM to find a location with a good enough cell signal to phone the RCMP to assist the occupants of the car. Thus when I came across the SureCall Fusion2Go 3.0, I understood the use case immediately:

The whole idea behind this product is that it will take a weak cell signal that would normally keep you from making calls or posting status updates to Facebook, and boost it within the confines of a car so that you can do those things. It is comprised of a number of parts:

An outside antenna that is magnetically affixed to the roof.

A signal booster that goes inside the car and takes the signal that is collected by the antenna and amplifies it.

An interior antenna that you ideally place in the center of the vehicle so that all devices inside the car can receive the boosted signal, as well as use it to transmit back to the cell tower.

Assembly of this is hilariously simple. You connect both antennas to the signal booster using the supplied cables. Where they go is labeled so there’s basically no way to screw this up. Then you plug the signal booster into the 12V outlet and flip the switch to power it on. It took me less than five minutes to do all of that. And this use case is great if you’re moving this from car to car. However if you want to have it permanently installed, no problem. SureCall has authorized installers who can help you with that.

To test this out I drove out to a location near Caledon Ontario that has poor signal strength,  and did some tests with and without the Fusion2Go 3.0 using an unlocked iPhone 7 Plus that had a Rogers SIM card that I borrowed from a client of mine. The reason why I went with a Rogers SIM card is that I knew from personal experience that Rogers signal strength in the area was not that good. The next thing that I did is that I put the iPhone 7 Plus into field test mode. What’s field test mode you ask? Every phone has a feature called field test mode which allows someone like those who work for cell phone carriers as well as companies to make cell phones to test the signal strength of a cellular signal in very precise ways. Now this feature is usually hidden, but if you’re interested in how to enable this on iOS 11, here’s an article that speaks to that. But I before I get ahead of myself, here’s a screenshot of what a good signal in my area of Toronto looks like:

The number you’re interested in is the RSRP0 number which is – 78 dB. RSRP stands for Reference Signal Received Power which is a way of measuring cell phone signal quality. This is a decent number based on the fact that signal quality can range from -40 dB to -130 dB, with -40 being the best possible signal and -130 being the worst. In general, any result that is into the triple digits is going to cause issues with voice calls being garbled or dropped, or you will find it difficult to send or receive email or post status updates to Facebook.

Once I reached the location of the test, this is what I got in terms of RSRP:

That was pretty bad and it was backed up by the fact that it took me three tries to make a call to my home voice mail and hear my voice on it. So I flipped the Fusion2Go 3.0 on and things changed dramatically:

At -95 dB, I was able to make phone calls and surf the Internet without a problem. My wife was able to replicate my findings on both ends with her iPhone 6 which is also on Rogers. So clearly this product works. Now there are two things that I should note, First is that the Fusion2Go 3.0 works with Bell, Rogers, Telus, MTS, and SaskTel. Thus I suspect it will also work with Rogers flanker brand Fido and the Telus flanker brand Koodo as well. Sorry Freedom Mobile customers, you’re out of luck at this point in time. Second, you have to have some sort of minimal signal for the Fusion2Go to work as it cannot work in an area that is a cellular dead zone.

So, what is this going to cost you? If you visit The Source in Canada via this link, you can expect to pay $549 CDN for one. Amazon.ca and SignalBoost Central has it for $599 CDN. For the Americans that are reading this, I found it on Amazon for $319.94 USD. Regardless of where you purchase it the SureCall Fusion2Go is easy to install, works well, and deserves a place in your vehicle if you tend to drive into areas that have spotty cell phone coverage.