Signal booster design and manufacturing company Cellphone-Mate introduced four new products this week that the company says have passed all of the tests for pending Federal Communications Commission requirements for boosters.
The signal boosters for machine-to-machine, vehicle, residential and small business markets are scheduled to begin shipping in January.
The FCC’s approval for signal boosters to be legal — if perhaps less powerful than they have been in the past — came along with new technical requirements so that the boosters would not harm cellular networks which were endorsed by all four national carriers. Those requirements go into full effect in March 2014. Cellphone-Mate is already getting a jump on the transition and according to CEO Hongtau Zhan, has overcome the technical challenges, passed the required tests, and is in the process of filing final paperwork with the FCC for the new boosters.
Zhan called the FCC’s ruling “a landmark decision for manufacturers, as well as consumers” in a statement.
Cellphone-Mate’s new signal boosters include the M2M for machine-to-machine applications; the Flex2Go for vehicles and portable reception needs; the Flex Pro for residential and small business use; and the Triflex A, for providing 2G, 3G and LTE signal boosting for AT&T residential and small business users. Cellphone-Mate expects the Flex2Go to receive approval first, in late December, and that the rest of the products will soon follow.
For more context on the history and controversy of signal boosters, as well as the impact of the new FCC rules and more information on the new signal boosters, RCR spoke with Zhan. Watch the interview.
