Hands-On With Wilson Electronics’ Sleek 4G LTE-A, Kiss Dead Zones Goodbye

When we last saw Wilson Electronics, they were introducing their Sleek 4G LTE-V wireless signal booster for use with Verizon’s 4G LTE-enabled devices. Now the company is expanding its 4G LTE offerings with the Sleek 4G LTE-A for AT&T’s 4G LTE network. The device functions much the same as the Verizon version, which is to say extremely well. We got some hands-on time with the signal booster here at CTIA, and were just as impressed with the new offering as we were with the original.

To demonstrate how well the 4G LTE-A operates, Wilson Electronics placed a standard Samsung Galaxy S II running on AT&T’s network inside of a box covered in copper mesh. The copper acts to block incoming and outgoing cellular signals the same way an office building’s walls would. Once inside the box, we ran Speedtest.net to see the type of connection speeds our S II could get within the box. Predictably, we got nothing.

We then connected the Sleek 4G LTE-A and ran the same test, and as promised, we were able to get speeds of up to 8MB downstream and 1 to 1.5MB up.

The 4G LTE-A is expected to hit the market in the third quarter of 2012 at a price of $129.

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