Ubifi Rural Internet

[jjoel]

STx, THANK YOU for posting the guide about the buyasession. I registered with the forum just to thank you for your guide. I'm posting this from my laptop listing to music on my amazon echo using my 12 months wroth of AT&T internet. So far so good!!! Better than my only other option of satellite internet for $100 (and data capped).

No internet was the only downside moving out to the country from the suburbs where I had 150mbps xfinity. But now we have home internet and are getting around 40mbps which is for the most part good enough for our needs.

 

[STx]

STx, THANK YOU for posting the guide about the buyasession. I registered with the forum just to thank you for your guide. I'm posting this from my laptop listing to music on my amazon echo using my 12 months wroth of AT&T internet. So far so good!!! Better than my only other option of satellite internet for $100 (and data capped).

No internet was the only downside moving out to the country from the suburbs where I had 150mbps xfinity. But now we have home internet and are getting around 40mbps which is for the most part good enough for our needs.

I'm glad it helped. Unlimited, fast Internet was a requirement for us before we moved, we ran out business online. We used a local WISP for a while but, it got unreliable. The cellular based service has been great for us.

 

[grants10]

I'm glad it helped. Unlimited, fast Internet was a requirement for us before we moved, we ran out business online. We used a local WISP for a while but, it got unreliable. The cellular based service has been great for us.

I also just registered now to thank you as well! I pretty much had the same situation as jjoel. Thank you again for explaining how to get this setup!

 

[TheMan419]

Just thought I would update this thread. We were getting speeds of 5 mb or so. Still not "high speed".

If I stand outside with my cell phone I can get higher speeds when not connected to the wifi. So I got Amazon.com: Wilson Electronics Wideband Directional Antenna 7-27 MHz, 5 Ohm (314411)

And associated cables, connectors and such. There happens to be a pole right outside the window the MoFi router sits in. I got all the equipment last night. Hooking it up and just holding it out the window as a beta test.... I got higher speeds and much better ping times.

Went from 3.0 mb up to 10.0 and latency dropped from 180 ms to 60 ms.

I suspect when mounted to the pole and more properly oriented toward the tower we will see significant speed increase.

The MoFi can actually attach to TWO of these antenna. So I may be ordering another one to really increase speed.

I will post more once everything is hooked up.

 

[BigBlue1]

Not that it's directly related, but on the topic of speeds for these types of devices: I recently replaced my Mobley with a Netgear Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) device. The newer/better technology bumped my speeds from typical range of 9-16Mb/s to 22-55Mb/s. Quite a nice jump. This is without an external antenna. Before the Nighthawk I also tried a Unite Explore but that device was very inconsistent and problematic for me. May have just been a bad unit (I purchased it used). Anyway, all of these speeds make for a much better connection for me that the only wired option in my rural location, which is a 5Mb/s (typically 2.0-4.0) DSL line.

Rob

 

[Bayfisher]

sub ed

 

[Diggin It]

$90/mo and $4-500 in equipment isn't looking all that attractive. I pay about $60/mo for 25M DSL after some discounts. Now if those discounts were to vanish and I was assured of more than 25 ... well ... maybe. 25 does everything I need for what I do with one or two devices and no streaming.

Some issues:

DSL is sometimes prone to outages, either nearby or distant due to cable cuts or storms knocking lines down.

DSL gives me a basic phone line that I've cut the frills off. I can call 911 and 800 numbers, but nothing else without tolls. I also get incoming calls. If I were to drop DSL and go to wireless, I'd either lose that, or still have to pay something to keep it which raises the total. I'd still have 911 ability as long as the line is connected even without calling ability.

Wireless is dependent on cell signal. That can be good if copper phone lines go down, but bad in extended power outages if the cell tower goes down. We've had situations where that happened.

 

[TheMan419]

$90/mo and $4-500 in equipment isn't looking all that attractive. I pay about $60/mo for 25M DSL after some discounts. Now if those discounts were to vanish and I was assured of more than 25 ... well ... maybe. 25 does everything I need for what I do with one or two devices and no streaming.

Some issues:

DSL is sometimes prone to outages, either nearby or distant due to cable cuts or storms knocking lines down.

DSL gives me a basic phone line that I've cut the frills off. I can call 911 and 800 numbers, but nothing else without tolls. I also get incoming calls. If I were to drop DSL and go to wireless, I'd either lose that, or still have to pay something to keep it which raises the total. I'd still have 911 ability as long as the line is connected even without calling ability.

Wireless is dependent on cell signal. That can be good if copper phone lines go down, but bad in extended power outages if the cell tower goes down. We've had situations where that happened.

Do you think if I could get 25mb Dsl I would be doing this? I mean seriously.......

We get ? mb dsl. In quotes because most of the time it was sub 1mb when it was working at all.

But you know thanks for pointing out something not available to me is better than what I have available. Useful comments

 

[Diggin It]

But you know thanks for pointing out something not available to me is better than what I have available. Useful comments

It's not pointing it out to you. It's me considering if it would work for me.

 

[STx]

$90/mo and $4-500 in equipment isn't looking all that attractive. I pay about $60/mo for 25M DSL after some discounts. Now if those discounts were to vanish and I was assured of more than 25 ... well ... maybe. 25 does everything I need for what I do with one or two devices and no streaming.

Some issues:

DSL is sometimes prone to outages, either nearby or distant due to cable cuts or storms knocking lines down.

DSL gives me a basic phone line that I've cut the frills off. I can call 911 and 800 numbers, but nothing else without tolls. I also get incoming calls. If I were to drop DSL and go to wireless, I'd either lose that, or still have to pay something to keep it which raises the total. I'd still have 911 ability as long as the line is connected even without calling ability.

Wireless is dependent on cell signal. That can be good if copper phone lines go down, but bad in extended power outages if the cell tower goes down. We've had situations where that happened.

It's $30/mo if you buy direct from AT&T instead of Ubifi, same service either way. The MOFI is $300 direct from them but, I'm starting to see a lot of knock-offs on Amazon for a lot less. I just bought one of these for $230, it physically looks the same but, I haven't tested it yet - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1Z41R9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Here is an option for $91, I haven't tried it yet - https://smile.amazon.com/Huawei-Rou...er+huawei&qid=1575640939&s=electronics&sr=1-2.

I know there's a lot to read in this thread now but, if you go through it you'll find that I've given you step by step instructions to do this a lot cheaper than Ubifi is charging, although the expenses are front loaded, once you pay them you're done for the year.

I'm pretty sure you can call 911 from a cell phone and they'll know where the call is coming from now. I haven't had a land line for probably 15 years, we've used cell phones and VoIP since it became practical to do so.

As far as speeds are concerned, there's no guarantee but I haven't had mine below 25MB even in the evening when everyone is home and streaming YouTube videos.

 

[dmccarty]

We got UbiFi about a year ago and have been very happy with the service. I wonder if the cheaper services would be just as good but we gots what we gots.

I have not checked the data rate but we have uses as much as 106 GB in one month with no issues. Our average usage has been almost 67 GB per month though I have not checked the last few months.

The MoFi is just sitting in one room with sorta the best path to the cell tower. We should get the external antennae but we have not done so since the service is working well enough.

We were living on a boat in a marina for a week a few months back. We were told the WiFi in the marina was not so good so we just took the MoFi to the boat, plugged it in, and we were good to go. It worked just fine even though we were in a different state.

Ubifi is much better than the $%^&*()_ "service" from CenturyLink.

Later,
Dan

 

[cqaigy2]

It's $30/mo if you buy direct from AT&T instead of Ubifi, same service either way. The MOFI is $300 direct from them but, I'm starting to see a lot of knock-offs on Amazon for a lot less. I just bought one of these for $230, it physically looks the same but, I haven't tested it yet - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1Z41R9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Here is an option for $91, I haven't tried it yet - https://smile.amazon.com/Huawei-Rou...er+huawei&qid=1575640939&s=electronics&sr=1-2.

I know there's a lot to read in this thread now but, if you go through it you'll find that I've given you step by step instructions to do this a lot cheaper than Ubifi is charging, although the expenses are front loaded, once you pay them you're done for the year.

I'm pretty sure you can call 911 from a cell phone and they'll know where the call is coming from now. I haven't had a land line for probably 15 years, we've used cell phones and VoIP since it became practical to do so.

As far as speeds are concerned, there's no guarantee but I haven't had mine below 25MB even in the evening when everyone is home and streaming YouTube videos.

What does AT&T call the service?

 

[STx]

What does AT&T call the service?

You can't get it from a rep, it's only available at Login. The plans there will be different based on the IMEI of the device you're using, the Sierra card in the MOFI has a plan that is $360 for a year of unlimited data. We have that one and routinely use 300GB per month.

 

[jjoel]

You can't get it from a rep, it's only available at [link]. The plans there will be different based on the IMEI of the device you're using, the Sierra card in the MOFI has a plan that is $360 for a year of unlimited data. We have that one and routinely use 300GB per month.

Diddo everything that STx just said. I just checked and we've been going through about 180GB a month. I suspect that will go up now that I've upgraded to 4K tv and have Disney+. No issues streaming 4K. Catching up on all the Marvel movies these days

 

[jjoel]

Hey STx, have you checked recently to see if the unlimited data for 12 month plan is still available? I'm thinking AT&T has changed things up.

 

[STx]

Yes, they got rid of it in Feb. You can buy SIM cards with unlimited data on eBay for $50/mo. I haven't gotten one, my plan is good for a few more months.

 

[RalphVa]

We've DSL and can stream videos through Roku Tubi or Roku channel if the speed stays up around 1.3 MB/s.

Lately, with this new computer and now on Firefox, the computer access is really good. Had a Zoom meeting yesterday, and I was doing some stuff on the other monitor from the internet during the meeting. Got the occasional "unstable internet" message popping up.

Ralph

 

[jjoel]

Yes, they got rid of it in Feb. You can buy SIM cards with unlimited data on eBay for $50/mo. I haven't gotten one, my plan is good for a few more months.

That's what I was afraid of. A quick look at ebay tells me that the $50 option is for customer renewal not for new customers. Looks like it means customers of the ebay seller (not customer of AT&T). I have until July 5 to get this figured out. I've been on paternity leave from work and since I've been out our office has shut down and everyone is forced to work from home, so I have to have a good internet connection.

I keep hoping that T-Mobile would come up with 4G LTE internet for everyone but the merger (just closed yesterday) has taken a lot longer than expected. I am a firm believer that the rural USA is (purposefully) oppressed from good internet. My only other option at the moment is to go with Hughesnet and I chose to go without home internet for over a year instead of going with satellite when we moved out to the country.

 

[BigBlue1]

I keep hoping that T-Mobile would come up with 4G LTE internet for everyone but the merger (just closed yesterday) has taken a lot longer than expected. I am a firm believer that the rural USA is (purposefully) oppressed from good internet. My only other option at the moment is to go with Hughesnet and I chose to go without home internet for over a year instead of going with satellite when we moved out to the country.

I don't think there is purposefulness to it; it's more a matter of return on investment. Providers consider how much money they can make against the investment they have to put forth to connect those under-served customers. In rural areas the density of residences and, therefore, hook-ups is much lower than in cities or metro areas. And distances are greater. So it costs them more to run cable or fiber to get fewer customers. It just doesn't make good business sense. It could cost them millions of dollars to run 5 miles of fiber and they might only end up with 50 customers. 50 customers paying $100/mo would take a LONG time to pay off that investment before any profit can be made.

Believe me, I wish that weren't true. I live in a rural area. I'd LOVE cable modem speeds here. But it is very slow to happen and it really only happens when government helps providers foot the infrastructure investment via subsidies. Which I'm also not a great fan of because it is a general fund expenditure going to a limited subset of the population. I think 5G or another wireless technology will be needed to actually bring reliable high speed Internet to rural areas. Physical lines are never going to be feasible from a cost perspective.

Rob

 

[dmccarty]

I don't think there is purposefulness to it; it's more a matter of return on investment. Providers consider how much money they can make against the investment they have to put forth to connect those under-served customers. In rural areas the density of residences and, therefore, hook-ups is much lower than in cities or metro areas. And distances are greater. So it costs them more to run cable or fiber to get fewer customers. It just doesn't make good business sense. It could cost them millions of dollars to run 5 miles of fiber and they might only end up with 50 customers. 50 customers paying $100/mo would take a LONG time to pay off that investment before any profit can be made.

Believe me, I wish that weren't true. I live in a rural area. I'd LOVE cable modem speeds here. But it is very slow to happen and it really only happens when government helps providers foot the infrastructure investment via subsidies....

Rob

Most of my county has CenturyLink DSL, or as one customer just called them, CenturyStink, and CenturyLink is not upgrading/fixing their network, which is why they have so many complaints in my county.

Having said that, a small mom and pop Internet service company is running fiber in some of the most rural areas of the county! I have heard nothing but good about that company. Unfortunately, we are not anywhere near where this company is laying fiber. They might be getting some of the tax money that is allocated for increasing access/speed to rural area. Whatever their business plan, it seems to be working. None of the big companies will provide enhanced service to my area even though it is fairly dense housing wise.

We have been using UbiFi for a year and have been happy with it. Much more reliable and faster speeds than CenturyLink.

Later,
Dan