Ubifi Rural Internet

[CowboyRon]

Just keep in mine those extenders suck wireless bandwidth to talk to each other, unless you get a Mesh System. Then those talk to each other over their own wireless band.

Mesh is the only way to go, I have an orbi and it covers quite a bit of my property

 

[kcflhrc]

Mesh is the only way to go, I have an orbi and it covers quite a bit of my property

Agreed, they are awesome.

 

[shooterdon]

I hate wasting money trying to find a solution that sorta-kinda works.

Does anyone know of a company in northern MI that handles this kind of stuff. I would pay $500 plus whatever hardware is needed to eliminate my satellite TV and internet. But it has to work and allow unlimited streaming of video.

 

[Welshman]

I finally decided to go with OTR Mobile, although I ordered a MOFI 4500 rather than the devices offered by OTR - it looked like a better unit. The MOFI arrived today and the OTR SIM card should be here Monday or Tuesday.
I may start a separate thread so I don't step on this one by TheMan419, especially since he's been so helpful.
I will say, the OTR folks are VERY responsive and helpful.
Somehow I thought the MOFI had an indicator for signal strength, but no. I guess I'll have to do some trial and error with my phone.

 

[TheMan419]

I finally decided to go with OTR Mobile, although I ordered a MOFI 4500 rather than the devices offered by OTR - it looked like a better unit. The MOFI arrived today and the OTR SIM card should be here Monday or Tuesday.
I may start a separate thread so I don't step on this one by TheMan419, especially since he's been so helpful.
I will say, the OTR folks are VERY responsive and helpful.
Somehow I thought the MOFI had an indicator for signal strength, but no. I guess I'll have to do some trial and error with my phone.

The mofi does not have an external indicator. You can log into the mofi itself and get a signal strength indicator. Some of the more advanced features you need to be hooked up to the mofi with an Ethernet cable to use.

 

[Xfaxman]

I hate wasting money trying to find a solution that sorta-kinda works.

Does anyone know of a company in northern MI that handles this kind of stuff. I would pay $500 plus whatever hardware is needed to eliminate my satellite TV and internet. But it has to work and allow unlimited streaming of video.

Click this link: broadband wireless internet providers for Johannesburg MI at DuckDuckGo

 

[Welshman]

The mofi does not have an external indicator. You can log into the mofi itself and get a signal strength indicator. Some of the more advanced features you need to be hooked up to the mofi with an Ethernet cable to use.

Thanks for that, TM. I'm anxious to get the SIM and try this thing out.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Welcome to rural internet. My ISP is Frontier. I get 1.2 mbit if nobody else (40 subscribers) is using the copper. It drops to about 600 kbit if somebody decides to stream a TV show. I can sabotage them by streaming my own show. Nothing streams steadily at 500-600k, so they will reboot their router a couple times and give up. During periods of heavy use, download speed can drop as low as 250-300 kbit. I'm shopping for a satellite provider right now.

 

[Welshman]

The mofi does not have an external indicator. You can log into the mofi itself and get a signal strength indicator. Some of the more advanced features you need to be hooked up to the mofi with an Ethernet cable to use.

Thinking more about this - does this mean that the advanced features are ONLY able to be accessed with an Ethernet cable, or just for initial set-up?

 

[Welshman]

The mofi does not have an external indicator. You can log into the mofi itself and get a signal strength indicator. Some of the more advanced features you need to be hooked up to the mofi with an Ethernet cable to use.

Thinking more about this - does this mean that the advanced features are ONLY able to be accessed with an Ethernet cable, or just for initial set-up?

 

[STx]

It's only initial setup. Once you've established the wireless network and addressing scheme, you can do everything over the wifi.

 

[Welshman]

It's only initial setup. Once you've established the wireless network and addressing scheme, you can do everything over the wifi.[/QUOTE)

Thank you. That will certainly make my life easier.

 

[kcflhrc]

Thinking more about this - does this mean that the advanced features are ONLY able to be accessed with an Ethernet cable, or just for initial set-up?

I cant think of a single reason that any features would be different either connected wired or wireless. It's just a GUI Interface to program just like any router.

 

[STx]

I cant think of a single reason that any features would be different either connected wired or wireless. It's just a GUI Interface to program just like any router.

There are times when you would do it for security reasons, I supported some high security networks at one time that had restrictions on which VLAN you could configure equipment from. I think you can restrict where the MOFI is configured from but, for a typical home network, there really isn't any reason to.

 

[kcflhrc]

Yep, doubtful the home owner will be doing VLAN's or QOS. But by default VLAN 1 would be the default but these router's probably have none of that defined and probably don't even have that capability. These router's will come with a default config that would work with most home networks.

 

[TheMan419]

It's only initial setup. Once you've established the wireless network and addressing scheme, you can do everything over the wifi.

Almost everything. If you want to get REALLY advanced and lock the unit on to a particular frequency from the tower you need to be connected by cable. I am in the middle of two towers. This spring when I can be outside I will be hooking up a direction antenna. The closer tower only has one frequency band it is using. The tower that is a bit further away (opposite direction) has multiple frequencies.

Per tech support you can lock the MoFi on to whatever frequency you want. Some of the advanced features can help you figure out which frequency is the best for your situation. Those can only be accessed if you are hooked up by cable.

The signal strength meter and some of the other features can be done wirelessly.

Of course setting up the initial WiFi password needs to be done while connected by cable. At least on my unit they even included a short (6 foot maybe) length of Cat 5 to accomplish this.

 

[RobA]

Of course setting up the initial WiFi password needs to be done while connected by cable. At least on my unit they even included a short (6 foot maybe) length of Cat 5 to accomplish this.

I haven't connected to the MOFI via a cable yet. I did the initial setup wirelessly.

 

[kcflhrc]

I haven't connected to the MOFI via a cable yet. I did the initial setup wirelessly.

Yep, it will have a default SSID and Password just like any router, so no need to connect wired.

 

[STx]

Almost everything. If you want to get REALLY advanced and lock the unit on to a particular frequency from the tower you need to be connected by cable. I am in the middle of two towers. This spring when I can be outside I will be hooking up a direction antenna. The closer tower only has one frequency band it is using. The tower that is a bit further away (opposite direction) has multiple frequencies.

Per tech support you can lock the MoFi on to whatever frequency you want. Some of the advanced features can help you figure out which frequency is the best for your situation. Those can only be accessed if you are hooked up by cable.

The signal strength meter and some of the other features can be done wirelessly.

Of course setting up the initial WiFi password needs to be done while connected by cable. At least on my unit they even included a short (6 foot maybe) length of Cat 5 to accomplish this.

I do band scanning and locking over WiFi. I've done all the configuration via WiFi, except for setting up the Wifi and addressing. I've even done the configuration to change from AT&T to Verizon over WiFi.

BTW, don't lock a single band, when you do it can't pick up another one for carrier aggregation during heavy use. At most, choose the bands of your carrier only under Advanced Band Locking.

 

[TheMan419]

I do band scanning and locking over WiFi. I've done all the configuration via WiFi, except for setting up the Wifi and addressing. I've even done the configuration to change from AT&T to Verizon over WiFi.

BTW, don't lock a single band, when you do it can't pick up another one for carrier aggregation during heavy use. At most, choose the bands of your carrier only under Advanced Band Locking.

That is odd because I was trying to to band scanning without being connected by cable. It would cause the MoFi to lock up and need to be rebooted. Called tech support and they said it MUST be wired to use that function.

As for band locking the issue would be one band may be stronger so you will lock on to that band. But it may not provide the most through put. I have not really played with that yet as the tower I am currently locked on to only has one band.....