Internet Connections

[hbn7hj]

Interblog,
Tongue in cheek but it looks to me like you have no choice but to try Hughes Gen 5 and tell us how it works!

Their website says nothing about it being on an RV so we would have to work through the lady in Tucson. I just don't get a good feeling about it. All the good reviews are on proprietary websites tho I do appreciate the link. The Facebook link is run by the person that sells them. I couldn't get a read on all 66 posts for some reason and the ones I did get appeared dated.

[hbn7hj]

The comments at the end of this review say don't bother with Hughes Gen 5.

https://www.reviews.org/internet-ser...esnet-reviews/

[InterBlog]

Technomadia did a review of HughesNet Gen5 about a year ago. Their take on it is that it is starting to show promise, but theory does not equate to real world outcomes. At this point, the review consensus seems to be that it's an ISP of absolute last resort.

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/rev...ughesnet-gen5/

[avanti]

You should understand that the Gen 5 satellites are still in geosynchronous orbit, which means that the latency of an Internet connection is the better part of a second and isn't ever going to get any better. Even if everything else in the system were perfect, the speed of light is not going to improve.

The new generation of low-earth-orbit "swarm" satellites that everybody is in the middle of launching is the only hope for really good satellite Internet. And, they are not going to need huge and/or fancy antennas.

[Viperml]

Yes, satellite internet connection is the future of the internet.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...-fcc-approval/

Home - OneWeb | OneWorld

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Viperml

Yes, satellite internet connection is the future of the internet.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...-fcc-approval/

Home - OneWeb | OneWorld

Hence my referenced option above of waiting for Elon to get off his butt.

[Viperml]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Hence my referenced option above of waiting for Elon to get off his butt.

Elon is not the only player in the game. Hence my mention of OneWeb.
Also, do not discount google. They are still a player to provide global internet coverage. They have scaled back on their original plans but do not discount them and other companies as well.

[hbn7hj]

Whatever happened to Motosat Datastorm? Are we not talking about it because it is too big for a B? It used to be the rage and now I seldom see it mentioned.

[Knit]

Sometimes having good mobile internet lets me work remotely and stay out a few days extra. I’ve been using a Cradlepoint IBR600 with a Mobile Mark multi element antenna on the roof that has both LTE and WiFi antennas. Has worked pretty well. Purchased both from https://3gstore.com/. A bit pricy but it has worked well and has reliable connections to the antenna. I can often get enough improvement for internet even when my smartphone can’t. Originally I used a pepwave soho router with a USB modem. I could never get the antenna connection to work right and it took a long time to get it to fallback to LTE when a WiFi connection was not available. Hooked up to ATT family plan with unlimited data. Pay about an extra $25 a month to have the SIM card for the Cradlepoint. I understand that Cradlepoint has a dual SIM card version so maybe one could stick both a Verizon and an ATT card in and use whichever is working best. With this setup, notebooks, tablets and smartphones can all hook on to the Cradlepoint router. There are some interesting antennas from Panorama at 3g Store as well.

This setup is not amplified. Sometimes I just find higher ground to get better LTE.

This Winegard product looks interesting too http://www.winegard.com/connect but I haven’t tried it. Having everything from a single vendor makes some sense to me. Especially one that knows antennas like Winegard.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Knit

Sometimes having good mobile internet lets me work remotely and stay out a few days extra. I’ve been using a Cradlepoint IBR600 with a Mobile Mark multi element antenna on the roof that has both LTE and WiFi antennas. ....

I've heard others speak highly of Cradlepoint. I glance at their webpages and see standard language such as "3G/4G Verizon with multi-band LTE". That's fine, but what is it in terms of their technology that supposedly makes it superior to other options? In lay language, if possible.

I've not yet investigated it seriously because it is carrier-specific here in the U.S., and it can get pricey because of that.

In a very recent and perverse twist, Verizon negotiated reciprocity with most, if not all, Canadian carriers. Whereas a Canadian subscriber may be limited to just their carrier, I bounce among three of the largest while at my land in Canada, at no extra charge. Of course, the carrying capacity is not good on any of them, compared to what I can access in Houston.

But I'm not sure how that would work functionally if I was trying to use Cradlepoint in Canada. For that matter, I'm not even sure that the practical outcome of this reciprocity is a good thing in my circumstances. Multiple choices seem to confuse the hell out of my Netgear AC791L.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Knit

Sometimes having good mobile internet lets me work remotely and stay out a few days extra. I’ve been using a Cradlepoint IBR600 with a Mobile Mark multi element antenna on the roof that has both LTE and WiFi antennas. Has worked pretty well. Purchased both from https://3gstore.com/. A bit pricy but it has worked well and has reliable connections to the antenna. I can often get enough improvement for internet even when my smartphone can’t. Originally I used a pepwave soho router with a USB modem. I could never get the antenna connection to work right and it took a long time to get it to fallback to LTE when a WiFi connection was not available. Hooked up to ATT family plan with unlimited data. Pay about an extra $25 a month to have the SIM card for the Cradlepoint. I understand that Cradlepoint has a dual SIM card version so maybe one could stick both a Verizon and an ATT card in and use whichever is working best. With this setup, notebooks, tablets and smartphones can all hook on to the Cradlepoint router. There are some interesting antennas from Panorama at 3g Store as well.

This setup is not amplified. Sometimes I just find higher ground to get better LTE.

This Winegard product looks interesting too Winegard ConnecT - Mobile Internet WiFi Extender + 4G LTE but I haven’t tried it. Having everything from a single vendor makes some sense to me. Especially one that knows antennas like Winegard.

I strongly agree that this kind of system with properly-designed and installed high-quality un-amplified antennas is the way to go. I am not quite saying the whole "signal amplifier" industry is a scam, but...

You will definitely get better and more seamless performance from an integrated cellular router over a tethered hotspot. But, as you say, such systems are pricy and you sacrifice the ability to independently upgrade the router and the modem.

How have you found the stability of the CradlePoint system? I used to buy CradlePoint products regularly. They all worked well, except that I had severe problems with the systems hanging and requiring frequent reboots. After seeing this problem with several generations of their products, I gave up and moved over the PepWave, which has been rock solid. They have a line of cellular routers with SIM slots as well, which would be my choice based on this experience. Have things improved in the CradlePoint world?

I am pretty skeptical about the whole Winegard world. They know antennas, but I am not so sure that they know routers. I don't know about them in particular, but many of these "single manufacturer" solutions targeted to RVers actually just assemble white-labeled components from companies like Ubiquiti. They are the class act in this area, and vastly cheaper than the competition. Admittedly, though, going that route requires a certain level of comfort with advanced router configuration.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by avanti

... I am not quite saying the whole "signal amplifier" industry is a scam, but...

....

The weBoost 4GX, which was Technomadia's top booster pick as of fourth quarter 2017, is retailing for about $480 right now. I'd say that was some of the best money I've ever spent on our van. We have it on a toggle power switch which I call the "magic button". Press that button and the entire van goes from "No Service" to streaming Netflix in about 90 seconds.

In many situations, that is. But not in every situation, and not in some of my most critical situations.

But for the average traveler, it is a viable option. The only caveat is to remain on the look-out for weBoost's net-gen offering (I don't know if it's out yet or not). There are also claims being made that the SureCall Fusion2Go 3.0, which was released in March 2018, might be a better product still.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

The weBoost 4GX, which was Technomadia's top booster pick as of fourth quarter 2017, is retailing for about $480 right now.

Except that a decent roof-mounted MiMo antenna costs like $100 and will almost always outperform any dumb amplifier.

I have explained why this is. But, I guess we are talking in circles.

[hbn7hj]

Thanks for the posts. Interesting that we all are working with different solutions.

I separate the wifi and LTE solutions using Alfa R36 and their 2 watt amplifier with an 18db directional antenna for wifi. Works very well connecting to local wifi but of course can't improve the park connection to the net.

Don't get many opportunities to use it lately since I'm not in RV parks much anymore. It is sometimes handy at truck stops or shopping centers.

WeBoost 4G-X amplifier works well with Verizon for LTE at the locations I frequent. I expect to be a customer when the swarm satellites come on line.

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by avanti

Except that a decent roof-mounted MiMo antenna costs like $100 and will almost always outperform any dumb amplifier.

I have explained why this is. But, I guess we are talking in circles.

Well, with MIMO antennas aren’t you pretty much limited to mobile hotspots and cellular routers with built in antenna ports for the MIMO antenna? Getting an unlimited data mobile hotspot is getting harder these days but unlimited data on phones and tablets is still easy. Or am I missing something or is there another way to get large amounts of data every month using a MIMO antenna for those video streamers out there?

[avanti]

Originally Posted by gregmchugh

Well, with MIMO antennas aren’t you pretty much limited to mobile hotspots and cellular routers with built in antenna ports for the MIMO antenna? Getting an unlimited data mobile hotspot is getting harder these days but unlimited data on phones and tablets is still easy. Or am I missing something or is there another way to get large amounts of data every month using a MIMO antenna for those video streamers out there?

This is fair. I should have added that if you have a requirement to use a phone rather than a hotspot then generally speaking an amplifier is pretty much your only option. I wish there was some way to attach an external antenna to modern cell phones. It is the roof-mount antenna that is doing the most good in these repeater setups. The amplifier itself often does more harm than good, but it is needed for the repeater function.

But we should be clear that this is a different requirement from having phone service, since the latter can be done via WiFi through the hotspot.

[InterBlog]

My husband is an Apple nut. We have AppleTV in our van (and at home). A lot of what we stream comes from phone mirroring with the help of the weBoost.

For those people who are looking for a simple bag of tricks, on the MIMO you might want to review Technomadia's take on the Netgear 6000450. For a time it was retailing for just $30 (it seems to fall on and off the market), and they reported that it outperformed every other option they had installed, including their roof-mounted MIMO. I bought it simply to have as another option - the price was so low that I couldn't lose, and in certain situations, it might prove superior. So far I've not used it extensively, but neither am I done discovering its limits.

This is a four-minute video where Cherie does a good job of boiling down constructs for people who are less technically-oriented.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Dsofx1Rto

[Mfturner]

I'm watching this with interest, I can work remotely from my office, and if I could find a reliable connection from the RV then I could use the RV much more than just for vacations and weekends.

One observation is that in my three decades of a TV antenna in the attic to fight the cable monopolies, I have found that I need a preamp at the antenna for best results. Probably the long coax runs are part of the reason it helps, but I wonder if cheap consumer electronic receivers are helped by a certain minimum signal level. I also think that reflections and interference we more obvious in analog TV days, when you could see the effects directly on the screen, but I believe they have to still exist at similar levels in an analog sense. I'm not sure what that means other than it might explain some of the apparent inconsistency in results.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Mfturner

I also think that reflections and interference we more obvious in analog TV days, when you could see the effects directly on the screen, but I believe they have to still exist at similar levels in an analog sense.

These situations are the main reason why MiMo works so well. A typical case of multi-path interference on one permutation of source/destination antenna pairings is very likely to be absent in one of the others. The MiMo antenna processing at the cell tower and in the modem will evaluate all permutations in real time and always select the cleanest one. This is the primary source of the magic. A "booster" will simply blindly amplify all of the interference along with the signal.

[Knit]

Originally Posted by avanti

You will definitely get better and more seamless performance from an integrated cellular router over a tethered hotspot. But, as you say, such systems are pricy and you sacrifice the ability to independently upgrade the router and the modem.

How have you found the stability of the CradlePoint system? I used to buy CradlePoint products regularly. They all worked well, except that I had severe problems with the systems hanging and requiring frequent reboots. After seeing this problem with several generations of their products, I gave up and moved over the PepWave, which has been rock solid. They have a line of cellular routers with SIM slots as well, which would be my choice based on this experience. Have things improved in the CradlePoint world?
.

Funny, I gave up on Pepwave and moved to Cradlepoint because the antenna connection to the external USB modem was badly flawed. I consider the internal LTE modem a significant benefit of using the Cradlepoint which was designed to be a rugged mobile product. I have found the Cradlepoint to be rock solid. I figure that by the time 5g is reasonably rolled out it will be time for a new RV solution anyway.