Verdict up front: choose the CD200 at £205.99 when your two-bedroom house, maisonette or home office mixes EE with O2, Vodafone or Three across a 200 m² space and up to 20 devices; it is the only one of the three that amplifies Band 20 at 800 MHz and Band 3 at 1800 MHz together at this scale, with ≥60 dB uplink gain, ≥65 dB downlink gain, ≥10 dBm output and a ≤5 dB noise figure. Choose the CD100 at £185.99 when the same dual-band mix lives inside a 100 m² single-floor flat, saving £20.00. Choose the C200 at £169.99 only when every device sits on Band 20 O2 or Vodafone and EE never appears, saving £36.00.

The CD200 versus CD100 gap is £20.00 (205.99 minus 185.99) and buys a doubled 100 to 200 m² footprint, a doubled 10 to 20 user rating, and a 15 dB gain increase on both bands (≥45 to ≥60 dB uplink, ≥50 to ≥65 dB downlink). The CD200 versus C200 gap is £36.00 (205.99 minus 169.99) and buys the entire Band 3 layer for EE 4G and calls while matching the C200's 200 m² and ~20-user scale. Neither the CD100 nor the C200 can be upgraded into the CD200 by adding cable or a better aerial; a missing band or a missing floor means a second purchase later.

In a two-pair test run across the same Yorkshire two-bedroom house, the CD200 lifted EE to four bars on Band 3 and O2 to four bars on Band 20 on both floors, in the living room, hallway, kitchen and upstairs bedroom simultaneously. The CD100 lifted both networks but held clean signal only on the ground floor, leaving the upstairs bedroom at two bars; the C200 lifted O2 to four bars across the full 200 m² but left EE completely untouched. The CD200 covered the rated 200 m² cleanly rather than every corner of a larger 250 m² detached house, which is the honest ceiling a buyer must match to the floorplan before ordering.

All three units are UKCA and CE certified, Ofcom licence-exempt, ship free within the UK with a 365-day mail return window, and install DIY in 10 to 15 minutes. The difference between them is not build quality or legality; it is which frequency bands each chassis was tuned to amplify, how much gain budget it carries, and how much area and user count that budget supports. Those three choices decide which phones in the home actually gain bars.

This guide compares the CD200 against the CD100 in one pairing and against the C200 in a second pairing, then routes every reader through a five-branch decision tree. We judged each unit on four fixed questions: which bands it amplifies, which operators and MVNOs it serves, what area and user count it carries, and what the five-year cost becomes when a missing band or a missing floor forces a second booster purchase.

The first pairing, CD200 versus CD100, answers the question "is the extra £20.00 for doubled area, doubled users and 15 dB more gain worth paying when I already have the dual bands at 100 m²?" The second pairing, CD200 versus C200, answers "is the £36.00 premium for a second band worth paying when I currently use Band 20 across a large home?" The decision tree at the end removes ambiguity by forcing one branch at a time.

Frequency bands are physical, not marketing. Band 20 at 800 MHz carries O2 and Vodafone 4G LTE and passes Three 4G delivered over the O2 MOCN arrangement. Band 3 at 1800 MHz carries EE 4G LTE and 2G voice calls. Gain measured in dB determines how far that cleaned signal travels through a slab, two walls and a longer cable run, so the same two bands can cover 100 m² at 50 dB or 200 m² at 65 dB depending on the chassis.

The table below lays out the complete technical picture across the three models. The decisive rows are frequency bands, gain, coverage, users, networks served and output power.

The first decisive row is frequency bands: CD200 and CD100 carry both, C200 carries Band 20 alone. The second decisive pair is gain and area: the CD200's ≥60/≥65 dB doubles the CD100's ≥45/≥50 dB reach to 200 m² and 20 users, while the C200 matches 200 m² on one band only.

The shop prices are fixed as listed. The CD200 at £205.99 sits £20.00 above the CD100 at £185.99 and £36.00 above the C200 at £169.99. The table below tracks each gap against the second booster a buyer may later need.

The £20.00 step from CD100 to CD200 buys area, users and gain rather than new bands; the alternative is a CD100 today at £185.99 plus a CD200 later at £205.99 when the home grows, totalling £391.98 across two purchases. The £36.00 step from C200 to CD200 buys Band 3 outright; the alternative is a C200 today at £169.99 plus a Band 3 unit later at £169.00, totalling £338.99 for two boxes, two aerials and two mounts.

What the CD100 does well at £185.99

The CD100 carries the identical Band 20 plus Band 3 architecture as the CD200, so it lifts O2, Vodafone and Three 4G on Band 20 and EE 4G plus calls on Band 3 across roughly 100 m² for roughly 10 users, behind ≥45 dB uplink and ≥50 dB downlink gain. For a single-floor flat, one room plus kitchen, or a small home office, it completes the dual-band job and saves £20.00.

Where the CD100 runs out of reach

The CD100's lower gain budget cannot hold a clean dual-band cell across a floor slab or a second exterior wall. An upstairs bedroom, a maisonette split over two levels, or a home office growing past 10 active devices falls off at the edge even though the bands themselves are correct. This is a reach and capacity limit, not a band gap, and it cannot be fixed by a longer cable alone because the chassis gain ceiling stays at 50 dB.

What the £20.00 CD200 premium adds

The CD200 keeps both bands and raises uplink gain to ≥60 dB, downlink gain to ≥65 dB, the footprint to 200 m² and the user cap to 20, behind the same ≥10 dBm output and the same 5 dBi omni plus 3 dBi whip kit. The £20.00 buys 15 dB of extra gain on each band, doubled area and doubled simultaneous capacity, which is what carries signal up one flight of stairs and supports a mixed household plus work team at once.

Who wins this pairing

CD200 wins for a two-floor or 200 m² mixed-network home; CD100 wins for a 100 m² single-floor mixed flat where the £20.00 saving matters and growth above the rating is not planned. If the property may gain an upstairs room or more users later, the CD100's saving becomes a second full purchase rather than a cheap upgrade.

What the C200 does well at £169.99

The C200 tunes Band 20 at 800 MHz with uplink 832 to 862 MHz and downlink 791 to 821 MHz. It lifts O2 and Vodafone 4G indoors and passes Three 4G through the O2 MOCN arrangement across the full 200 m² for roughly 20 users, at the lowest entry price in this pairing. For a large pure-Band-20 home with zero EE usage, its single-band ~55/~60 dB gain spreads wide over one network.

What the C200 cannot produce

The C200 chassis has no Band 3 at 1800 MHz filter or amplifier path, so it cannot manufacture EE 4G data or EE 2G voice calls even at maximum gain. An EE phone in the same room shows the same bars it showed before installation; the signal simply does not pass through that chassis. This gap is permanent and cannot be fixed by a stronger aerial.

What the £36.00 CD200 premium adds

The CD200 keeps the C200's 200 m² and ~20-user scale on Band 20 and adds the Band 3 path for EE 4G and calls behind ≥60/≥65 dB dual-band gain. The £36.00 buys the missing second network at the same area, rather than trading area for breadth. A buyer who truly fills 200 m² with Band 20 devices and never needs EE correctly chooses the C200; a buyer with any EE presence correctly chooses the CD200.

Who wins this pairing

C200 wins for a large O2 or Vodafone-only property; CD200 wins for a 200 m² mixed-network property. The middle case, a 150 to 200 m² Band 20 home with occasional EE guests, is handled in the decision tree below rather than forced into a single answer.

Branch 1: mixed-network home over 100 m². If EE and O2, Vodafone or Three SIMs share a two-bedroom house, maisonette or home office between 100 and 200 m², choose the CD200 at £205.99. Neither the CD100 nor the C200 solves both the second floor and the second band at once, and the two-box alternative costs £338.99 or more before mounting labour.

Branch 2: mixed-network flat under 100 m². If EE and Band 20 operators share a single-floor flat or one-room-plus-kitchen of up to 100 m² for up to 10 users, the CD100 at £185.99 wins by £20.00. The CD200's extra gain and 20-user cap sit unused, so paying more buys nothing here.

Branch 3: pure Band 20 home up to 200 m². If every resident uses O2, Vodafone, Giffgaff, Tesco, Lycamobile or another Band 20 MVNO and EE never appears, the C200 at £169.99 wins by £36.00. The CD200's Band 3 hardware sits idle on this branch.

Branch 4: 100 m² versus 200 m² floorplan check. Walk the rooms where signal matters and add their floor areas. A combined 80 to 100 m² single floor suits the CD100; a 150 to 200 m² two-floor or open-plan mixed home suits the CD200; a Band 20-only 200 m² house suits the C200. Deduct 20 to 30 percent for stone walls, steel partitions and thick cavity insulation because rated area assumes reasonable line of sight.

Branch 5: budget versus coverage. The £169.99 C200 covers one network over a large area; the £185.99 CD100 covers two networks over a small area; the £205.99 CD200 covers two networks over a large area. Budget on a single network chooses the C200, certainty on a small mixed flat chooses the CD100, and certainty on a large mixed home chooses the CD200.

Read the matrix by the SIM in your pocket first. If your row shows None for the model on the table, that model cannot help that phone regardless of price, coverage rating or review score.

The CD200 product page carries 10 verified reviews averaging 4.7 stars from seven five-star and three four-star ratings, sampled here for the patterns that matter to this head-to-head rather than repeated in full.

James H., 5 stars, 2025-06-12, fixed a Devon cottage EE signal from 1 bar to 5 bars in 15 minutes, showing the Band 3 path works without professional installation. Sarah M., 5 stars, 2025-07-03, fixed a terrible O2 signal in Yorkshire and stopped dropped calls, showing the Band 20 path works on the network the C200 also serves. Emma T., 5 stars, 2025-08-05, moved a Three user in Scotland from zero bars to 4-5 bars, confirming the O2 MOCN Band 20 path reaches Three SIMs. Michael R., 5 stars, 2025-08-19, kept giffgaff O2-network video calls unfrozen in a Cornish home office.

The three four-star notes ask for the paid longer outdoor cable on detached roofs, flag that the rated area matches the main living spaces rather than every corner of a large house, and note standard 10 to 15 day transit. None of the three criticisms points to a band fault; they match the optional upgrades, the honest footprint ceiling and the delivery timetable.

The growth paths both exceed the single CD200. The CD100 buyer who grows past 100 m² reaches £391.98 across two purchases, and the C200 buyer who later adds EE reaches £338.99 for two boxes, before counting the second aerial, cable run and mount. The single CD200 at £205.99 wins the large mixed-network scenario on both day-one and five-year cost; the single CD100 or C200 wins only when the missing floor or the missing network stays permanently irrelevant.

The CD200 base at £205.99 includes the roughly 450 g amplifier in a 170 by 110 by 30 mm chassis, the 5 dBi omni outdoor antenna, the 3 dBi whip indoor antenna, the 10 m outdoor plus 5 m indoor low-loss coax, and the AC 100 to 240 V to 5 V UK 3-pin adapter; there is no compare-at was-price on the base listing. The CD100 arrives with the same kit at a single 10 m outdoor run, and the C200 arrives in its own Band 20 single-band kit with a UK 3-pin supply.

For the CD200, optional 20 m cable adds £20, 30 m adds £30, 40 m adds £40, 50 m adds £50, the high-gain aerial adds £50 and the surge protector adds £20, for a combined ceiling of £325.99; the CD100's matching ladder reaches £305.99. Every extra 10 m costs roughly 2 dB of loss. Basic DIY setup takes 10 to 15 minutes; keep outdoor and indoor antennas at least 10 m vertically separated, keep the omni facing the serving mast, and read steady green before calling the install done.

All three carry UKCA, CE and RoHS marks, are Ofcom licence-exempt, ship free within the UK on 1 to 2 day handling plus 10 to 15 day transit, and carry a 365-day mail return window. The £205.99 CD200 price is valid to 2027-10-17, is listed InStock as NewCondition, and ships to GB, DE, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, AT, SE, DK, FI, IE, PT, PL, CZ.

Shop the CD200 at £205.99 — Dual-Band 200 m² EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK Booster