Cheap $20 a month Stand Alone Unlimited Rural Internet through AT&T Wireless

[Xfaxman]

My Mobley has yet to test at >6 Mbps down or >2 Mbps up. The local cell tower is two miles away and I can just see the top of it from the window the Mobly hangs in when I'm not on the road with it.

It should do better than that.

Try moving it a little bit and also change the orientation.
When mine was on the window sill moving it a half inch would drastically increase the speed.

And laying flat it was faster with the label side up.

 

[the old grind]

Thanks. I just got some sticky tape. If I can find a better position I might try to weld it in place. Maybe hot glue or something.

 

[sd455dan]

My Mobley has yet to test at >6 Mbps down or >2 Mbps up. The local cell tower is two miles away and I can just see the top of it from the window the Mobly hangs in when I'm not on the road with it.

"mjdfhegej ... (ptooey) ... I'm keeping my bait warm, what more does it take to be faster than I can use?"

You could try what I did if you don't want to mess with changing out the mobley itself.

Bought a multiple band booster for about $250 couple years ago/and put the directional antenna on a pole with ability to rotate it. Our Main towers are miles away at the top of a ski resort.

The mobley needs to be placed within about 10 feet of the booster but it made a big difference for us because the mobley was having weak transmit problems 'reaching any of the towers", download was about what xfaxman gets but our upload was in the kbs many days leading to disconnects. Days like today we get like 7 Mbs up

With 4 connected devices right now seeing about 13 Mbs down and 4mbs up. No problem having 2 devices streaming in standard definition and a couple just surfing text sites. The added benefit is some mobile phones also get a boosted signal in the house. Most days if no other devices are on the wlan download speeds are around 25Mbs.

 

[sodamo]

If you have the $20 Mobley plan already, you can keep it.. at least until you screw up and allow a rep to change it. Main reason I *only* deal with reps in a real ATT corporate store and not online or at an 'authorized' store/Best Buy.

My thoughts as well.

 

[TheMan419]

This. ^^

We who got in stay in. Buuuut their are newer and similar AT&T wi-fi plans for a few more bucks that do offer something to those without fiber or cable access but decent cel coverage. btw, expect better rates than Verizon as usual. (VZW stockholder, AT&T customer )

Yep. I am on a corporate plan for $50/mo. Plus I have a nighthawk mobile router. When we are at home it is connected to a Yagi antenna. However it has a battery and we could take it with us on the road if we needed/wanted to. Unlimited data. We generally get 20-25 mbs down and 8 up. We don't have children so that is enough of a "pipe" for us. We are on the starlkink wait list, but this plan is pretty good.

 

[ernemats]

Yep. I am on a corporate plan for $50/mo. Plus I have a nighthawk mobile router. When we are at home it is connected to a Yagi antenna. However it has a battery and we could take it with us on the road if we needed/wanted to. Unlimited data. We generally get 20-25 mbs down and 8 up. We don't have children so that is enough of a "pipe" for us. We are on the starlkink wait list, but this plan is pretty good.

How good is your cell phone reception where you live. We have marginal cell service even with a we boost signal booster. I have been wondering if the nighthawk would work

 

[BigBlue1]

Anyone still using the plan? The Mobley is not on the ATT list of approved devices anymore. Witht he 3G network shutting down I figgured this would kill this plan. I am not on this plan, but had my MOFI device stop working due to the 3G cut off. My Nighthawk arrives today.

I'm still using it. It's not my main ISP now that I have Starlink, but it makes a great backup. Just did a test and got 81Mb/s. This is with the Netgear Nighthawk M1 modem/router.

As for the original Mobley, it wasn't 3G so even the original device should still work fine if a person has the device and the plan.

Rob

 

[buckeyefarmer]

It’s still my only internet. Still works great.

 

[TheMan419]

How good is your cell phone reception where you live. We have marginal cell service even with a we boost signal booster. I have been wondering if the nighthawk would work

Our cell service is fair. Can make and receive calls with no issue. Internet on the phone is like 4mb up or down most of the time. With the nighthawk we have an external antenna that really bosts the reception. If your cell service is marginal with the weboost I would be worried the nighthawk would also be marginal.

Our antenna is not positioned the best either. I suspect if I put it up on the roof we would get even better signal. There was a pole in the ground in a good spot to get the wire into the house. It had a fair line of sight to the cell tower so I just used that spot rather than doing some work to find the ideal spot.

Also the Nighthawk is capable of MIMO so you can put up two antenna offset in opposite directions at 45 degrees to verticle to take advantage of the polarization of the cell signal to get even better reception. We have one antenna oriented vertically.

 

[newbury]

My Mobley has yet to test at >6 Mbps down or >2 Mbps up. The local cell tower is two miles away and I can just see the top of it from the window the Mobly hangs in when I'm not on the road with it.

"mjdfhegej ... (ptooey) ... I'm keeping my bait warm, what more does it take to be faster than I can use?"

As posted elsewhere in this thread (IIRC) I bought a weBoost 474120R (Refurbished) back in 2020 for $90. That upped my cell phone reception where I needed it by about 10dB. And worked with the Mobley also.

Is there a screen in the window? Is the glass low-e?
see linky

 

[Midniteoyl]

Something to note for those with the Nighthawk MR1100 (4g) is that the WiFi on it really sucks. You might get good signal to the tower, but unless you run it through the Ethernet port to another WiFi router or WiFi hotspot, it will max out at about 40mbps and limit the number of attached devices (to 6 or 9, I think).

Mine runs to a switch, then to several devices via Ethernet cable and a EXT7000 hotspot. 19 connected devices and 120-220mbps speed, depending. I only have the 2.4Ghz radio on in low power as a way to connect to the router in emergencies.

 

[TheMan419]

Something to note for those with the Nighthawk MR1100 (4g) is that the WiFi on it really sucks. You might get good signal to the tower, but unless you run it through the Ethernet port to another WiFi router or WiFi hotspot, it will max out at about 40mbps and limit the number of attached devices (to 6 or 9, I think).

Mine runs to a switch, then to several devices via Ethernet cable and a EXT7000 hotspot. 19 connected devices and 120-220mbps speed, depending. I only have the 2.4Ghz radio on in low power as a way to connect to the router in emergencies.

20 devices on the current model I have. You can up the power in settings. They call it "Range". From the factory it is set to low. I bumped it to maximum. That comes at a cost to battery life, but mine lives in the basement plugged in 100% of the time so no big deal.

Also if you want to attach to an external switch or router you have to adjust a couple settings to make the ethernet port on the device always on. Again that comes with a power drain, but I am plugged in.

 

[Midniteoyl]

20 devices on the current model I have. You can up the power in settings. They call it "Range". From the factory it is set to low. I bumped it to maximum. That comes at a cost to battery life, but mine lives in the basement plugged in 100% of the time so no big deal.

Also if you want to attach to an external switch or router you have to adjust a couple settings to make the ethernet port on the device always on. Again that comes with a power drain, but I am plugged in.

Is that 20 devices on the Nighthawk's wifi?

'Range' (wifi radio power) isn't the same as 'throughput' (speed). The physical WiFi radio in the Nighthawk is limited to ~40mbps throughput.. 2 examples: Slow one connected directly to the Nighthawk's Wifi, other one's when connected to the AP's WiFi ('hotspot' which is connected to the Nighthawk's ethernet port)

https://imgur.com/7cwlLNu

https://imgur.com/Ok4YOod

Also, double check your ethernet timeout. Some reported the last update reset theirs to 2 minutes. Doesn't stop you from accessing the internet, but does introduce some lag while the port wakes up.

 

[TheMan419]

Is that 20 devices on the Nighthawk's wifi?

'Range' (wifi radio power) isn't the same as 'throughput' (speed). The physical WiFi radio in the Nighthawk is limited to ~40mbps throughput.. 2 examples: Slow one connected directly to the Nighthawk's Wifi, other one's when connected to the AP's WiFi ('hotspot' which is connected to the Nighthawk's ethernet port)

https://imgur.com/7cwlLNu

https://imgur.com/Ok4YOod

Also, double check your ethernet timeout. Some reported the last update reset theirs to 2 minutes. Doesn't stop you from accessing the internet, but does introduce some lag while the port wakes up.

Correct 20 devices connected to the Nighthawk Wifi. It has an ethernet port so you can just hook up whatever wifi router you want behind if you desire. We have it hooked to a point to point system to beam signal out to our barn. Then a wifi router hooked to that to provide internet coverage out in the barn.

Given our signal strength we are getting about 20-30 down regardless if we use the Nighthawk or a router attached to the ethernet port.

I just changed the settings on the port to "unlimited" or whatever the setting is to not go sleepy sleepy on me. Since the router is pluged in all the time power consumption is not a worry.

 

[ernemats]

How expensive is the nighthawk if you buy it outright $249.99. I mean what is the monthly bill after that?

 

[BigBlue1]

Your service through AT&T doesn't change just because you switched devices. If you had the service at $20/mo that's what it remains.

 

[kcflhrc]

I think I pay like $23 a month, cheap

 

[ernemats]

I think I pay like $23 a month, cheap

How long have you had it for? I think it is a lot more now.

 

[kcflhrc]

The Mobley plan I have is no longer available for new customers. I have had it 2 years I think

 

[BigBlue1]

How long have you had it for? I think it is a lot more now.

Nope. Those who got in on the plan still pay $20/month (plus taxes, so $23-ish).

But if you didn't get in on the Mobley plan then yes it would cost a lot more to get a comparable hotspot plan today.