If you have an LTE modem or hotspot with a removable antenna, you can do this sort of thing nearly exactly the same, just need to tune the antenna for different frequencies.
Phones tend to not have swappable antennas so you’re limited to doing something like using a parabolic dish to concentrate signals, and positioning the phone at the focal point.
Maybe you could construct something like a yagi antenna using a phone as the driven element…
