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The problem

No mobile signal in the house in Spain: what it means and what can be done

No bars in the living room. The phone says 'no service' or 'emergency calls only', and to talk you have to walk into the garden or go up to the terrace. This page explains what is really going on, how to find out in ten minutes whether it can be fixed, and the cases where the answer has to be no.

'No service' and 'emergency calls only' are not the same thing

It is worth looking at exactly what the phone says, because the two phrases mean different things and the difference decides the job. 'Emergency calls only' means your handset can hear some network, but not yours, or not enough to register on it. 'No service' means it hears none at all. The first nearly always has a fix. The second depends on what is up on the roof.

Why you have nothing indoors and bars outdoors

Because bars are not measuring the same thing in the two places. The signal reaching your plot has already travelled kilometres and arrives with barely enough. In the street that is enough for your phone. Crossing the façade it loses another share, and below a certain point the handset can no longer register: it does not go from four bars to one, it drops to nothing at once. That is why it feels so abrupt, and why it looks as if 'there is no coverage here' when what there is not is coverage indoors.

The four reasons why the signal arrives spent — distance, the sierra, the closed valley and your own walls — are explained one by one in why you have no signal inside your house, with the municipalities where each is to be expected.

The ten-minute test that decides whether it can be fixed

You need no equipment and you do not have to call anyone. With your own phone:

  1. Step out to your front door and look at the bars. Write them down.
  2. Go as high as you safely can: the terrace, an upstairs window, the highest point you can reach without risk. Look again.
  3. Walk round the house, stopping on all four sides. Note where there is most. That direction is very probably where the mast is.
  4. Repeat it with another phone on another network if there is one in the house. It is the most informative test of all and the cheapest: if your neighbour's works and yours does not, the problem is your operator, not your house.

If one or two steady bars appear up high and outside, your house can be fixed: there is something to pick up. If up high, outside and turning in all four directions nothing at all appears on any operator, then there is nothing to amplify and that has to be said. To measure it in numbers rather than bars — which mislead — see how to tell whether there is enough signal.

What can be done, in order

  1. WiFi Calling, if you have internet at home. It is free, it comes with your plan and it solves the call problem without anyone coming out. How to switch it on.
  2. Try another operator with a ten-euro prepaid SIM inside your house. On the same street one company can work and another not.
  3. Outdoor antenna and booster, with your operator's authorisation, if there is something to pick up on the roof. How it works.
  4. If there is nothing on the roof, this route ends here, and we will say so. What is left is WiFi Calling over fibre, or over satellite where fibre does not reach.

With a booster or without one, we do not promise 112 or emergency calls. A plugged-in device switches off when the power goes, and a house's coverage depends on a network that is not ours. Always keep another way available; we show you which one during the installation.

How we work

We measure › We ask for authorisation › We install › We test

1

We measure

Indoors, outdoors and on the roof, with a meter. If nothing can be done, we say so before starting.

2

We ask for authorisation

From your operator, in writing and in your name. Without it nothing is installed, and you pay for no installation.

3

We install

Aimed outdoor antenna, booster and indoor antenna. Half a day.

4

We test

We measure again in the same spot and make a call with you before we leave.

FAQ

Questions about this

Does it work if I have no signal at all?
It depends where that 'at all' is. If there is nothing indoors but there is something on the roof, yes. If there is nothing on the roof either, no: a booster spreads signal, it does not manufacture it. The survey measurement is exactly what answers that question, and it answers it before you pay for an installation.
My phone says 'emergency calls only'. Is that good or bad?
It is good news, relatively speaking: it means your handset can hear some network. Often it is another operator's, and then the cheapest solution is to move to that operator, not to install anything with us.
Is it the phone's fault?
Rarely, but it happens. An old handset may not have the bands your operator uses in that area today. Putting your SIM in another phone, in the same room, rules it out in two minutes.
How long does the whole thing take?
The survey is a visit of a good hour. The fitting is half a day. Between the two sits the authorisation request to your operator, which is not up to us and is the part that can take time. We would rather say that than promise you a date.

Tell us what your phone says and where you live

With those two things we can already tell you on WhatsApp, the same day, whether your case looks fixable. No obligation and no charge.

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