What is a Cellular Repeater?

A cellular repeater (also known as bi-directional amplifier, cell phone repeater, or cell phone booster) is a device used to improve cell phone reception in an indoor and outdoor environment. 

A cellular repeater is typically made up of three primary components:

Donor Antenna (DA)

Bi-Directional Amplifier (BDA)

Distributed Antenna Systems (DBA)

Cellular repeaters are most often installed inside buildings, and are used to bring signal from outdoors into the structure, negating attenuation of cellular signal caused by the building materials. In-building cell phone repeater systems typically use an outdoor donor antenna to transmit and receive signal from the nearest cellular signal. The outdoor donor antenna is connected via coaxial cable to an amplifier unit which amplifies the signal, and retransmits it locally via indoor distributed antennas, providing improved signal strength inside the building.

Smaller cellular repeater are also used inside vehicles, boats, and recreational vehicles.