The £240 upgrade buys you four things that matter in a commercial premises: (1) 1000 m² of coverage instead of 500 m² — enough for a small office, a warehouse or a large shop rather than a five-bed detached house; (2) 100 simultaneous users instead of 50 — enough for a busy shop, a 50-desk office or a bar at peak rather than a 20-desk office; (3) commercial gain of ≥60 dB uplink / ≥65 dB downlink, 5 dB more than the GD500's 55/60 dB; and (4) a 10 dBi commercial-grade indoor panel antenna instead of the GD500's 7 dBi panel, which reaches further across open-plan commercial space. If your premises is 500 m² or smaller and you are a household rather than a business, the GD500 at £365.49 is the better buy. The GD1000 exists for the small office, the shop, the bar, the restaurant or the warehouse that has outgrown the GD500's 500 m² / 50-user ceiling.

The 1000 m² rating is the maximum coverage area the GD1000's 10 dBi commercial indoor panel can serve from a single central placement — and a typical small UK office or single-bay warehouse is around 600–900 m² of floor area, so 1000 m² comfortably covers it from one central panel. If your property is a 2000 m² warehouse, a multi-floor industrial unit, a 150-desk open-plan office, a hotel or a building with steel mezzanines and partitioned offices, a single 10 dBi panel will not reach every corner and you would need either a second indoor antenna on the same coax (not recommended — it splits the signal) or a second GD1000 unit on a separate donor antenna, or the C2000 enterprise unit for 2000 m². For the vast majority of single-storey shops, bars, restaurants and small offices, one centrally placed 10 dBi panel on the ceiling covers the whole premises. Walk every area after install — if the stock room or far office still shows weak signal, move the panel more central or add the cable upgrade.

No — the dB number is lower because one chassis is doing two jobs, not because the amplifier is weaker. A single-band G1000 (Band 8 only, £505.91) or D1000 (Band 3 only, £396.00) dedicates its entire RF budget to one frequency, so it can push 80 dB through one antenna path. The GD1000 has to split that same power supply and amplifier budget across two bands simultaneously — Band 8 (900 MHz) and Band 3 (1800 MHz) — so the per-band gain lands at 60/65 dB. The trade-off is deliberate: you lose 15–20 dB of raw per-band gain, but you gain both voice and data in one box, one drill kit and one power supply. If your building is very large and weak and you only need Band 8 voice, the G1000's 80 dB will go further; if you only need Band 3 4G, the D1000's 80 dB will go further. The GD1000 is the right call when you need both bands in the same commercial building and you cannot justify two separate units.

Yes, and this is the exact use case the GD1000 commercial was built for. The GD1000 amplifies Band 8 (900 MHz) and Band 3 (1800 MHz) continuously — it does not switch between them. So an EE phone gets amplified 2G calls on Band 8 and amplified 4G data on Band 3 at the same time. An O2 or Vodafone phone gets amplified 2G calls and SMS on Band 8, with its 4G data left as-is (because O2/Vodafone 4G rides Band 20 800 MHz, not Band 3). A Three phone gets amplified 4G data on Band 3, with its calls left as-is (because Three has no 2G network). Up to 100 devices can be connected at once, which is plenty for a 50-desk office with staff plus customers. The carrier caveat is the same on the GD1000 as on the GD500 — only EE customers get both voice and data from this one unit.

It depends on the layout. In a typical single-storey warehouse or retail unit, the Yagi on the roof or gable is 4–6 m above the indoor unit on the office ceiling, and the horizontal run along the wall or conduit is another 6–10 m — so 10 m is often tight or just short. If your Yagi is on the far gable end of a 50 m long warehouse and the indoor panel is in the central office 20 m away, the 10 m standard cable will not reach and you will need the 20 m, 30 m, 40 m or 50 m upgrade. Each extra metre of low-loss N-type coax loses a small amount of signal (around 0.1–0.2 dB/m at 1800 MHz), so pair a longer cable run with the higher-gain Yagi option to compensate. Before ordering, measure the route from your proposed Yagi mount to your proposed indoor panel position along the walls and ceiling — if it is over 10 m, add the cable upgrade at checkout. Do not stretch or coil the 10 m cable; a tight loop creates its own interference.

For a corner shop, a 50-desk small office, a neighbourhood bar or a 60-cover restaurant, 100 concurrent users is plenty — it covers staff plus a typical number of customers on their own phones at any one time. For a busy exhibition hall, a 150-desk open-plan office, a hotel with guests across multiple floors, a warehouse with contractors and staff at peak, or a pub with 150+ patrons at a weekend, 100 will be too few and you should step up to the enterprise C2000 (2000 m²). The 100-user cap is a hard limit built into the RF design — it is not a soft licence you can upgrade. If you are unsure, count how many phones, tablets and mobile hotspots are actively using mobile data or making calls during your busiest hour; if that number stays under 100, the GD1000 commercial is the right size. The GD1000's 100-user capacity is exactly double the GD500's 50, so it is the commercial step-up for growing premises.

Yes, 3 dBi matters more than it sounds at first. Antenna gain is logarithmic: a 3 dBi increase means the indoor panel radiates roughly double the effective power in its main direction. In a 1000 m² open-plan commercial space — where the indoor unit sits on a central office ceiling and has to reach the shop floor, the stock room, the bar terrace and possibly a mezzanine — that extra reach is what makes the difference between the far stock room showing two bars versus four bars. The GD500's 7 dBi panel is fine for a 500 m² five-bed detached home, but for a 1000 m² warehouse or retail unit with open-plan living, the 10 dBi commercial panel is the reason the GD1000 can claim 1000 m². Place the 10 dBi panel at the centre of the premises, on the ceiling or a central column, facing downwards into the open area — do not tuck it in a back office, or the wall will absorb the extra gain.

No, and this is the single most important caveat to understand before ordering. The GD1000 boosts Band 3 (1800 MHz), which is the 4G LTE band that EE and Three use. O2 and Vodafone carry most of their UK 4G traffic on Band 20 (800 MHz) — a lower frequency that penetrates buildings better but that the GD1000 does not cover at all. So an O2 or Vodafone SIM in a GD1000-boosted premises will show full bars for calls and SMS on Band 8 (900 MHz), but your 4G mobile data will not be amplified at all. If your pain point is slow O2 or Vodafone 4G data in the warehouse, you need the C1000 Band 20 (800 MHz) booster at £535.00, not the GD1000. The GD1000 is the right choice if your pain point is dropped calls and failing texts on O2/Vodafone, or if you have an EE or Three data SIM in the same building. Do not order the GD1000 expecting it to speed up O2/Vodafone 4G — it will not.

Yes, the GD1000 works band-by-band independently. It has two amplifier paths — one for Band 8 (900 MHz) and one for Band 3 (1800 MHz) — controlled by separate AGC loops and shown on separate LED indicators. If your Yagi picks up strong Band 8 donor signal but weak or zero Band 3 signal, the Band 8 path will amplify calls and SMS normally, and the Band 3 path will simply idle (the Band 3 LED will show low or off). Your EE/Three 4G data will not be boosted, but your O2/Vodafone/EE calls will. Conversely, if your Yagi picks up strong Band 3 but weak Band 8, your EE/Three 4G data will be boosted but calls will not. The 8 dBi Yagi is directional, so if you find one band is missing, try re-aiming the Yagi slightly — different operators' masts sometimes sit on different bearings, and a 10–20 degree adjustment can bring in the missing band. The LED indicators on the front of the GD1000 tell you exactly which band is locked, so you can diagnose this in seconds.

The GD1000 is designed for DIY install in 30–60 minutes with a drill, screwdriver, spanner and ladder — but the Yagi mount at 3–5 m on a commercial building is the one step where safety matters. If you have a sturdy extension ladder, a wall-mounted bracket at 3–4 m on a solid brick or rendered warehouse wall, and a helper to hold the ladder, most competent business owners or facilities staff can do it. If your Yagi needs to go on a flat industrial roof with a safety harness, a pitched slate or tiled roof ridge, a chimney stack above first-floor guttering, or a listed building, hire a professional aerial rigger or scaffolder — the cost is worth it for the safety margin. You do not need an electrician: the GD1000 runs from a standard UK 3-pin wall socket (DC 5 V output), there is no mains wiring inside the unit, and the coax is low-voltage RF. The only electrics work is drilling a hole through an external wall for the coax and sealing it with silicone. If you are nervous about heights, the 365-day guarantee gives you the option to install the Yagi at a lower wall height (2–3 m) and accept slightly weaker donor signal before committing to the roof mount.