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

[BigBlue1]

UPDATE for anyone interested.

This morning, the Mobley was working fine....then boom, no signal. I had to run to town, did so, some 3+ hours later, I checked it still no signal. I did a chat session with at&t.

After going thru many different motions including a 'master' reset of the device....that corrected it. Seems I hit the 22GB limit, and per the tech he noted that he saw this on the account. When I hit it, they effecting locked the Mobley (probably in error) and this 'master' reset was need.

I said on forums, many using the Mobley had not been throttled....his reply.... "yeah its just a way to kinda conserve usage on the network, to be honest it doesnt happen too often but we do see it sometimes." I was the sometimes.

The good news, I got back on the Mobley, checked speeds, they are the same as before. So the 22GB was hit, but they did not throttle, but they did something that required the Mobley to have this master reset.

I highly doubt your issue had anything to do with 22GB. Chances are you passed that usage recently but whatever problem you had was totally separate. Being that they advertise the 22GB limit it is no surprise that their system logs the fact you passed it, but nothing about their contract or documentation says you'll be cut off, only slowed. The fact your speed was back to normal after the reset seems to confirm that this was coincidental, not caused by the limit.

Rob

 

[jcummins]

So how did you "Master Reset" the Mobley?

Hold the reset for 7+ seconds, the on green light turns red, release it's reset.

 

[jcummins]

I highly doubt your issue had anything to do with 22GB. Chances are you passed that usage recently but whatever problem you had was totally separate. Being that they advertise the 22GB limit it is no surprise that their system logs the fact you passed it, but nothing about their contract or documentation says you'll be cut off, only slowed. The fact your speed was back to normal after the reset seems to confirm that this was coincidental, not caused by the limit.

Rob

You may be right.

 

[TractorGuy]

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

The GL-AR150 come in 2 flavors with or without external antenna, item description/pic should have shown appropriate. W/0 is a dollar or 2 cheaper.

Once connected, follow the instructions to access and set up similar to the screens I posted earlier. Really easy if you don't over think it.

Wish I would have paid more attention when buying. I mainly bought from the ebay seller based on it saying the item location was Miami so I figured I would get it fast. It didn't ship same day and ended up coming from Boston. Seller had 27 negative feedbacks in a month so I should have expected as much but I didn't look at his ratings till after. I paid 29.99 for it figuring it was worth a couple of extra bucks to get it quick. As soon as I took it out of the box I went back and saw the illustration of the one I bought had no external antenna. I am tempted to pay return shipping and get the other model off Amazon.

It does have better range than the Mobley though. I walked out in the yard looking at wifi on my cell phone and it stays connected when the mobley shows out of range.

 

[BigBlue1]

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

Wish I would have paid more attention when buying. I mainly bought from the ebay seller based on it saying the item location was Miami so I figured I would get it fast. It didn't ship same day and ended up coming from Boston. Seller had 27 negative feedbacks in a month so I should have expected as much but I didn't look at his ratings till after. I paid 29.99 for it figuring it was worth a couple of extra bucks to get it quick. As soon as I took it out of the box I went back and saw the illustration of the one I bought had no external antenna. I am tempted to pay return shipping and get the other model off Amazon.

It does have better range than the Mobley though. I walked out in the yard looking at wifi on my cell phone and it stays connected when the mobley shows out of range.

Everybody likes to crap on Amazon these days but I find the fact that Amazon dictates the rules and enforces compliance by sellers (when Amazon isn't selling direct) to be very useful. If you bought through Amazon and realized you bought the wrong one you can simply initiate a return and get the correct one ordered. And most of the time returns are free shipping, though this may be because a lot of what I buy is from Amazon direct. eBay can definitely be a decent place to buy if you watch the terms and seller ratings closely but when I buy there I make sure it isn't something I'm likely to return.

Rob

 

[sodamo]

Amazon vs ebay
I go back and forth with shipping often being the deciding factor. Most of the time Amazon Prime wins out unless a price difference. Sometimes ebay will ship to me where Amazon won't. About a month ago, the items I wanted were slightly cheaper with shipping from eBay, so I ordered from eBay. Tracking came via Amazon and eBay still shows them enroute.
I've never had a return problem with Amazon either for replacement or refund. Now with Amazon always charging State tax, another factor.

 

[TractorGuy]

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

Everybody likes to crap on Amazon these days but I find the fact that Amazon dictates the rules and enforces compliance by sellers (when Amazon isn't selling direct) to be very useful. If you bought through Amazon and realized you bought the wrong one you can simply initiate a return and get the correct one ordered. And most of the time returns are free shipping, though this may be because a lot of what I buy is from Amazon direct. eBay can definitely be a decent place to buy if you watch the terms and seller ratings closely but when I buy there I make sure it isn't something I'm likely to return.

Rob

Returns are about the same with ebay. AND ebay will step in and force sellers to do right if they don't do it on their own. I have first hand experience with this scenario. I have encountered return problems with Amazon sellers wanting return shipping to be paid. This ebay seller designates buyer pays return shipping in the return policy so I expect I'll have to pay.

All that said this thing lost connection as I tried to determine it's actual range and afterwords I could not get the Mobley to reconnect without restarting it. SOOOOOOOOO I don't know if the problem was with the router or the Mobley but the Mobley has been working fine for the last 24 hours before connecting the router. I am going to start from scratch and try returning this router.

 

[TractorGuy]

Holy upgrade Batman! Just ran a speed test after the Mobley restarted and got 19 down and 1 up at speedtest.net. The speed test app on my phone showed 11.92 down and 1.88 up. Must have the clouds aligned just right because I have been pretty consistent at just under 5 down.

 

[jcummins]

AH HA....UPDATE 2!

It did it again.
'Master' reset didn't do anything except to frost my password I had set. Didn't do that before.
Another chat with AT&T. Here's the jest of the chat. I'm getting pissed.

LaDonna : I am just looking at some provisioning on your account.
LaDonna : I want to make sure all of the codes are up to date.
Jerry : hitting 22GB and slowing speeds is one thing....killing the connection is another matter
Jerry : it's that or the device is bad
LaDonna : Yes, I am trying to find a reason for the connection issues on our end.
LaDonna : How long have you had the device?
Jerry : 8 days
LaDonna : Oh no!
Jerry : when date/time did I hit 22gb
LaDonna : I am looking
LaDonna : My system isn't showing me dates, just that you are at 23.82 GB of used data.
LaDonna : Where did you purchase the device?
Jerry : i got it 06/22 bought on line with at&t
LaDonna : Ok.
Jerry : this problem out of the blue started about 7am today
LaDonna : Thank you
LaDonna : ]
LaDonna : Let me run through a few more things and see if we can get it working correctly.
LaDonna : Otherwise, you are still withing your 14 buyers remorse period and we can get you a new one.
Jerry : not sure if it device....or your network programming
LaDonna : We can have the backend office technicians look at that too.
LaDonna : Do you have the IMEI number for the device?
Jerry : yes just a second
LaDonna : Thank you.
Jerry : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
LaDonna : Thank you
Jerry : you do something?....just got a green connect light
LaDonna : I'm still looking at the account
LaDonna : I haven't sent anything yet
Jerry : well....for unknown reason it connected.
LaDonna : That's great.
Jerry : i'd like a resolve one way or the other is this flaky condition the device or your netowrk?
LaDonna : Can you stay with me just a little longer?
Jerry : yes
LaDonna : I want to make sure you keep this connection.
Jerry : me too
LaDonna : Thank you
LaDonna : Am I chatting with Jerry?
Jerry : yes
LaDonna : Thank you Jerry. What are you trying to connect to the hotspot?
Jerry : i logged into Mobley with an ipad....it looks normal now
LaDonna : Great
Jerry : ipad/pc/phone
LaDonna : All at once?
Jerry : no
LaDonna : Great.
Jerry : just in figuring out this connection....right now ipad is connected and looks normal
Jerry : so...we need a resolve is this reocurring problem ....device....or netowrk
LaDonna : I did see that you had a file missing from the account and I added that fro you.
LaDonna : *for
Jerry : is that file imperative in the netowrk working/
LaDonna : Yes it is.
Jerry : any idea why it was missing?
LaDonna : No, I don't know why.
LaDonna : I haven't worked with many mobile hotspots so I don't know if maybe it just didn't download properly when the device was activated or it needed to be added.
Jerry : SO.....network ok this am, so the file had to be there....then the problem...so the file was put back? Now it happened a 2nd time, and the file is missing....perhaps again, since we aren't sure what cause the orginial problem....BUT one thing sure, if that file was missing, it was ok few hours again so someone or something deleted it
LaDonna : Not necessarily. This could be the one that keeps the connection. It is needed to function properly.
Jerry : so, was this problem device or network?
LaDonna : It was just a coding error.
Jerry : why are you doing coding on my account within the last couple of hours?
LaDonna : I'm not doing coding on your account. The code/file was missing and I added it for you.
Jerry : I understand it wasn't you....but someone at at&t is messing with something that's knocked this hotspot off the air twice today.
LaDonna : I don't believe that anyone is messing with anything on your account. I believe that this file/code was for some reason always missing from your account. It didn't stop the device from working periodically but it did stop your device from working properly.
Jerry : OK....it didn't impact the first 8 days of use.....we'll leave it that it's fixed. If it acts up again we have this chat as record. Hopefully it won't. Thanks for fixing it.

 

[Xfaxman]

UPDATE for anyone interested.

This morning, the Mobley was working fine....then boom, no signal. I had to run to town, did so, some 3+ hours later, I checked it still no signal. I did a chat session with at&t.

-------------.

Was the green signal light off?

Mine quits working sometimes and a power on reset always gets it working, but the signal light never goes off.