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

[lostcreekranch]

Mobley users - heads up ZTE is not to be trusted according to intel officials
Mobley users - heads up ZTE is not to be trusted according to intel officials

I was watching the testimony when this came up yesterday.

FBI, NSA, DNI, Pentagon, etc. all agreed that ZTE should not be trusted.

 

[BigBlue1]

But that's not an accurate test of your true internet speed by using wifi. That's all I'm saying. A wired test is a more reliable test.. When you include all variables? Not sure that's even possible.

It's not true to say "that's not an accurate test of your true internet speed by using wifi." The fact is that it could well be a great and accurate test. What wi-fi brings to the situation is a variable that MAY impact your speed test. If you have a good connection from your testing endpoint device to your router via wifi then your LAN speed is likely far better than your WAN speed so the Internet test will be accurate. Sure, if you are getting some spectacular broadband package that is above the max wifi capability of your router then your test will be artificially limited. But if that's the case then your need for a speed test is probably moot anyway.

I think the correct was to present it is to tell people that if they are doing a speed test they should either have a wired connection or a very solid wifi connection. And if they only have a marginal wifi connection they have to be wary of their test results.

That said, often the desire is to test throughput from an endpoint to the Internet, not to test your ultimate ISP-delivered speed. In that case the speed you get on whatever wifi connection your endpoint has is your real and accurate speed to that device. Think of a TV or other streaming device connected by wifi in a far corner of your house. You want to stream video and are testing your speeds to see if you can from there. Whatever that device gets is what it gets and will govern the effectiveness at that endpoint, regardless of if your router can pull 100Mb/s direct.

Rob

 

[kcflhrc]

Well I guess we can agree to disagree about a true speed test. When your tech comes out and runs a wired speed test and it's fine then hands you a bill for his time don't complain.

 

[BigBlue1]

You seem to have selectively ignored much of what I wrote. Under what circumstances would a "tech come out and run a wired speed test" for you? Probably only if you had opened a support case saying that your Internet connection speed was not what you were paying for. If you have gotten yourself to that point I'd hope you would be following the things I pointed out above about understanding how your network works and where your bottleneck actually is. Clearly, if you're running a test from an endpoint with a poor wifi connection it isn't valid for judging your actual ISP speed. But it is valid for judging the bandwidth to that endpoint. Not every speed test is about validating your ISP speed in a vacuum.

Rob

 

[kcflhrc]

You seem to have selectively ignored much of what I wrote. Under what circumstances would a "tech come out and run a wired speed test" for you? Probably only if you had opened a support case saying that your Internet connection speed was not what you were paying for. If you have gotten yourself to that point I'd hope you would be following the things I pointed out above about understanding how your network works and where your bottleneck actually is. Clearly, if you're running a test from an endpoint with a poor wifi connection it isn't valid for judging your actual ISP speed. But it is valid for judging the bandwidth to that endpoint. Not every speed test is about validating your ISP speed in a vacuum.

Rob

Maybe I wasn't clear originally. I am a tech that runs into this crap all the time. People ***** about their wireless speeds and it usually ends up being their crappy router or device. So yeah, I do understand how to troubleshoot these issues. And yes, most are too ignorant to do simple testes before they call and complain. Those are the one's that get a bill

 

[newbury]

<snip>Whatever that device gets is what it gets and will govern the effectiveness at that endpoint, regardless of if your router can pull 100Mb/s direct.

Rob

EXACTLY.
I spent many a day in the field (real farmer type fields) with the field US Army. We had a lot of equipment sold to us promising FAST internet. The only way I could make sure the General in the TOC had the fastest we could provide is to test from the pipe we got the data at to endpoint where the General had to see it. Excuses didn't work with a two star.

Had one situation in Germany where we were running over 10-Base-T transferring (what was then considered) massive amounts of map data filling our ENORMOUS 9 gigabyte drives. I'd set the system up, string the cable through the TOC, start transferring data with acceptable speeds. Come back a few hours later it slowed to a crawl. Found that one GI was taking the sections of loose cable behind the machines and winding them up TIGHT so he could make them look neater. This was breaking some of the strands in the stranded twisted pair, not enough to totally kill transmission, just darn near.

With wi-fi I'll be getting great transmission speed then other users pop up on other networks in other houses close to me (but on the same band) and it slows to a crawl. So if I'm getting 2 gadzillion bps to my Mobley but only 2 bps from my Mobley to my phone/PDA I'm stuck.

 

[BigBlue1]

Maybe I wasn't clear originally. I am a tech that runs into this crap all the time. People ***** about their wireless speeds and it usually ends up being their crappy router or device. So yeah, I do understand how to troubleshoot these issues. And yes, most are too ignorant to do simple testes before they call and complain. Those are the one's that get a bill

Well sure. If you're trying to dumb things down to the lowest common denominator, average idiot then the safe suggestion is to recommend a wired test. My point was that a test over wifi isn't automatically invalid, it just takes some understanding of what you're doing. You come at things from a very specific viewpoint and I'm trying to be more generally speaking. I get you.

Rob

 

[jcummins]

How's this working for everyone now? For the last couple of weeks, the response has gone into the toilet. It seems that it's not all the website, but most of them. Right now I hot spotted my cell phone, and have the laptop connected....HUGE difference in through put. Either AT&T network is crapping out.....or they are throttling big time.

 

[rustyshakelford]

Haven’t read or caught up in this thread for the last several weeks/months but we started out loving the hotspot until they started slowing it down big time. The email we get is they can do it when the network is congested. However, we are in the middle of no where and they will tell me the system isn’t congested. They slow it down anyways. Guess they are wanting to be in the middle of another class action lawsuit for being deceitful.

Brett

 

[BigBlue1]

Mine has had no issues with speed. And I'm sure I exceed the cap monthly. Though it doesn't surprise me that they would slow things down. To me this was always a short term bonus. Too good to be true forever.

Rob

 

[kcflhrc]

My Mobley is still going strong through the Asus Router. For $22 a month it's a winner. Just ran 10 meg down and 5 up. I know people in town on DSL not getting that.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

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

Mine doing good. 35 GB this month

 

[newbury]

Since I've been "stuck" in Alexandria, Virginia I've only used it sporadically in the last 6 months. But just yesterday Cox cable went out for several hours so I fired it off, was getting 18 down.

 

[sodamo]

Mine appear to be as good as ever. Pleased.

 

[the old grind]

I'm still knocking down 12-15 Gb/mo at speeds roughly double what prevaricating Comcrap cable provides to long-term (42 yrs) vs 'intro' customers.

IMO there's something wrong with us seniors paying the fright for gamers that use ten times the data. I guess we can't deny giving our youngsters 'what they're used to' while poppa and meemaw foot another bill for them.

I'm quite pleased with AT&T service, and just thrilled with my Mobley as a secure mobile (I know, right?) hotspot.

 

[Groo]

I can regularrily stream to two TVs with it while messing around on-line.....but every so often it gets real slow.

 

[TractorGuy]

No change in performance here. Fingers crossed it will continue.

 

[davrow]

Interesting this was mentioned today... I was going to cancel mine but decided to put it off while read TBN.

So when I say I 'just now' canceled it, that is really true.

Anybody want a Mobley with no service plan? :laughing:

 

[sd455dan]

Interesting this was mentioned today... I was going to cancel mine but decided to put it off while read TBN.

So when I say I 'just now' canceled it, that is really true.

Anybody want a Mobley with no service plan? :laughing:

someone might, i thought the deal was any of us that bought mobley's and activated them when the Unlimited data deal Was available you could add some more at the $22~ price each because they are grandfathered in under our existing plan.

 

[newbury]

Since I've been "stuck" in Alexandria, Virginia I've only used it sporadically in the last 6 months. But just yesterday Cox cable went out for several hours so I fired it off, was getting 18 down.

Well, sporadically just became more often. Seems Cox is messing with our local wiring again. Net went out about 0200 this a.m. My adult son, who works a third shift job got home about 0230, his normal routine is to surf till dawn gaming at high speed. By about 0330 he couldn't take it any more and woke me with "Can I borrow the Mobley?".

And I couldn't get back to sleep, which why I'm posting at 0410.

Well worth it.

Interesting this was mentioned today... I was going to cancel mine but decided to put it off while read TBN.

So when I say I 'just now' canceled it, that is really true.

Anybody want a Mobley with no service plan? :laughing:

Basically what's an equitable price and would they let me "swap out" if mine died?

/edit - forget it, a quick look on ebay shows new are going for $250, too rich for my wallet. Need to cut back on net usage anyways.