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

Barry 1 · Apr 18, 2020

I'm sure the Mobley is no longer supported,when it comes to repairs,but this is all I get from all the foreign people that you can't understand,working for AT&T.Thousands of people still have working ones,but good luck finding one of the idiots that even know what a Mobley is.They only try to sell me that new SPARK one that only works in a vehicle,when running. I guess I'm screwed.I had to go to the AT&T store 3 years ago to get this turned on,and can't do that now ,with this virus.

kf4uda · Apr 18, 2020

I got a Netgear Nighthawk M1 router and put my Mobley simm card in it. You have to contact AT&T and get them to give you the PUC codes to unlock your simm as described earlier in this thread. When I finially got the right person on chat support, it was no problem. Getting to that person took a while.

So far it has worked great. I guess time will tell.

kcflhrc · Apr 18, 2020

You can order the Netgear LB1121 from Amazon and put the SIM into that

TractorGuy · Apr 18, 2020

Barry 1 said:
Two days ago,my Mobley lost signal.Never had a problem in 3 years.There are no outages,I'm on auto pay,nothing wrong with the device.Some one turned it off at ATT,and I've been on the phone for 2 days getting the run around. Connected car dept.tells me it is no longer supported,and all I get is the run around.Must of talked to 20 people and got nowhere.They tell me it is active-yea,my account is active but the mobley is not. I have another new mobley,and i swapped the cards,and same thing-it powers up,but no signal.The problem is with ATT and all they do is transfer me from one person to the next and none of them ,including connected car,have even heard of a Mobley.Any one have some magic phone number the gets me to the right person ???

Try looking up tower locations and go to a different tower. Pretty sure most of my troubles were tower related.

That said my Mobley did die after a year. Driving to a different tower didn't have any affect.

Swapped the sim to a velocity and watching a movie as I type.

jcummins · Apr 18, 2020

How do you force switch of towers?

My Mobley keep needing reboot, bought the Netgear been solid since then. But if you've got a spare Mobley sounds like they are screwing over you.

newbury · Apr 18, 2020

I had about given up on my Mobley.
I "travel" with it. Part time in Alexandria, Virginia, part time down here in northeast Mississippi. We came down to Mississippi about the first of 2020 for a planned 2 month stay. Then along came Covid19. We decided to shelter in place on 70 acres in Mississippi rather than on 1/4 acre in Virginia.
Our Mississippi ISP is SUPPOSED TO BE 7 Mb down, 1 up. It's usually 6 down .5 up so I was pleasantly surprised to see I was getting 15 down 5 up with the Mobley down at the shop FOR A WHILE

Then last week it dropped down to < 2 down .65 up (frequent testing w/ speedtest). Then today it popped back up to about 10 down/2 up.
I'm apprehensive about swapping the SIM out or drilling and putting an antenna hook up. I'm wondering about the possible use of a cell phone signal booster.

After 4 years of nagging I finally bought a weBoost 474120R (refurb for $90) for the house and I went from 0 bars, about -116 Dbm measured just before, to 3 bars -105 Dbm when I plugged it in yesterday.

But it didn't seem to improve the Mobley. Any pointers on getting the booster to work with the Mobley?

/edit - I had not bought one before because they cost almost $400 and my wife had bought a similar one about 6 years ago that didn't work worth a darn.

TractorGuy · Apr 19, 2020

jcummins said:
How do you force switch of towers?

My Mobley keep needing reboot, bought the Netgear been solid since then. But if you've got a spare Mobley sounds like they are screwing over you.

With the sim in an actual Mobley or any other portable device you would go to this link. Search for Cell Towers | CellReception

Enter your city and state then check the AT&T box. It will probably pop up a notice it can't display properly in the map. Just click okay and it works fine.
It will bring up a map with place holders for the different towers. Click on one and it will give the address. Put the device in your vehicle and drive to a tower that isn't near you.

If you want to see the direction of the tower nearest you just enter the address in Google Maps. When it sets a pin you can right click on it and click on what's here. It will give you the lat and long. Get the lat and long for your address the same way then go to this sight and enter both coordinates to get the direction from your home to the tower. You may need to look up the magnetic correction for your location.

kcflhrc · Apr 19, 2020

There is no way that map can be correct. It shows no AT&T or Sprint towers even close to me and I gave great service on both. So it must be tower ownership only and not actually who has service on that tower. A shared tower is what I'm saying.

jcummins · Apr 19, 2020

I have tried several apps on my Samsung phone that supposedly does cell tower mapping. None of them are in agreement and none of them show the tower that I can see outside my front window. This link does show that Tower and tends to make me think that this link is more accurate than any of the apps. But for such garbage to be put out giving you information like that is just nuts.

TractorGuy · Apr 19, 2020

kcflhrc said:
There is no way that map can be correct. It shows no AT&T or Sprint towers even close to me and I gave great service on both. So it must be tower ownership only and not actually who has service on that tower. A shared tower is what I'm saying.

All I can say is it worked for me. I went to the nearest AT&T and Verizon towers it showed in my area and both were right where it said they were.

TractorGuy · Apr 19, 2020

jcummins said:
I have tried several apps on my Samsung phone that supposedly does cell tower mapping. None of them are in agreement and none of them show the tower that I can see outside my front window. This link does show that Tower and tends to make me think that this link is more accurate than any of the apps. But for such garbage to be put out giving you information like that is just nuts.

There are towers that are designated for emergency band only and those are most likely not listed. I have one of those nearby. I called the number on their fence to ask what carriers were using it and was told it was police and emergency bands only.

Welshman · Apr 20, 2020

I've been with OTR Mobile for about a year. AT&T is the carrier, and service has been good. We've recently been notified that we have to switch plans to T-Mobile, because AT&T will no longer honor the "unlimited" plan. I don't know whether or not this is relevant to you "Mobley" folks.

newbury · Apr 21, 2020

Welshman said:
I've been with OTR Mobile for about a year. AT&T is the carrier, and service has been good. We've recently been notified that we have to switch plans to T-Mobile, because AT&T will no longer honor the "unlimited" plan. I don't know whether or not this is relevant to you "Mobley" folks.

Thanks for the info!!

Dutch445 · Jul 2, 2020

My Mobley died over the past few weeks, a reboot and it would work for a little while, then "no internet".. I took Ron's advice, and bought a refurb
Netgear Nighthawk and got my PUK code from ATT chat, pretty simple to get that going. It is a little different than the Mobley in that once
you hook it to a router, you no longer have wifi with the Nighthawk, it turns into more of a true modem.
Once i fiddled around with the ASUS cellspot to get that working, speeds are great, the Mobley was typically running in the high teens for
speed, but running thru the Asus router i can't complain about these!!!

Barry 1 · Jul 2, 2020

Tell me more about how you got the PUK code please.Then how do you go about unlocking the sims card? Couple of months ago my mobley quit,and I think it got locked by ATT .They are NO help.I have another brand new mobley,and the card doesn't work in either one. Thanks

jcummins · Jul 2, 2020

I went with the LB1120 because of the $$$. Not as fast, but it is rock solid for 3 months or so. Mobley was having serious problems.

BigBlue1 · Jul 2, 2020

Barry 1 said:
Tell me more about how you got the PUK code please.Then how do you go about unlocking the sims card? Couple of months ago my mobley quit,and I think it got locked by ATT .They are NO help.I have another brand new mobley,and the card doesn't work in either one. Thanks

AT&T Connected Car Mobley SIMs Reporting as PIN Locked - How to Get Your PUK Codes - Mobile Internet Resource Center

Summary: Contact AT&T and ask for the PUK codes. Receive codes. Put SIM in another device, which will prompt for PIN. Enter invalid PIN (anything) until the SIM tells you that you've locked it. Then use the PUK code to unlock and reset the PIN.

Rob

Dutch445 · Jul 2, 2020

BigBlue1 said:
AT&T Connected Car Mobley SIMs Reporting as PIN Locked - How to Get Your PUK Codes - Mobile Internet Resource Center

Summary: Contact AT&T and ask for the PUK codes. Receive codes. Put SIM in another device, which will prompt for PIN. Enter invalid PIN (anything) until the SIM tells you that you've locked it. Then use the PUK code to unlock and reset the PIN.

Rob

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i did a chat with att support, explained i wanted PUK code for sim card, gave here the phone number associated with it, and she gave it to me,
then i had to ask her for PUK 2, as she didn't just offer that up, and said PUK 1 should get me unlocked, but she did give it to me rather happily..

kcflhrc · Jul 2, 2020

I never got offered up a PUK 2, she told me to PUK OFF. But Puk 1 worked fine in a Netgear LB1120 and a Netgear Nighthawk Router behind it. Speeds consistently above 20mbs and usually over 40.

BigBlue1 · Jul 2, 2020

You don't need both but since you're asking and they have two why not get them both? Who knows when or how it might become useful later or if AT&T stops giving them out at some point.

Rob