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

[sodamo]

Yea, some info here: AT&T Stand alone AT&T Unlimited ZTE Mobley Hotspot now only $20!!!!!

Carefully drilled, only 2 screws and 2 clips to remove cover.

Believe my Yagi is called a Triband.

Coax is what I had on hand from building the house. From HD, maybe RG6? Didn't know I should have maybe used something better. Yagi came with a better coax but too short for my purpose. Can't complain since I'm pretty ignorant in these matters but it works great.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

OK, got my Mobley working. According to Fast.com, 25-30 mb/sec. Some notes:

I bought it from BestBuy on eBay. I got what seems to be the usual run-around: I was able to activate it online on the AT&T site -- until I wasn't. The next day they sent me an email saying that my activation had failed and I had to go in person to an AT&T store. So I did, after a bit of confusion at the store they found the $20 plan, activated me and it was working. I started getting emails from AT&T about my account, but when I went to the AT&T website they said I had no account and there was no account listed with my email. None of the emails had my account number, but they did have a phone number they had given me. What I eventually figure out was I had to register for a new AT&T account online. Then I put in my phone number, they sent a confirmation email to my email, and I was able to get it all linked. Someone upthread called AT&T "disorganized" and that's pretty much it, I have to wonder if every new customer has to go through this, and if so, how they have any customers at all.

I did have to pay a $45 activation fee, which I wasn't supposed to, but I'm going to eat it. The local blood bank pays $50 for a plasma donation, I've never done it but I use that as my guideline when deciding whether something is worth the aggravation. I'd rather lose a pint of blood than deal with AT&T customer support any more. I guess that's part of their business model.

Right now I'm powering it off of the USB port on my computer using this 12V step-up converter: Amazon.com: KUNCAN Dc 5v to Dc 12v Converter Step Up Voltage Converter 5ft Am to Dc 5.5 x 2.1mm: Electronics


I happened to have a Tamiya style connector in my junk box, the female pins fit nicely onto the male pins of the OBD-2 connector on the Mobley and crimp onto the wire. Positive to pin 16 and negative to pin 4. Here's a similar connector on Amazon:
Amazon.com: Duratrax Battery Connectors Unwired (2-Piece): Toys & Games

Once I've used it enough to develop confidence I will try connecting it to my router using the USB port on the side and seeing if it can power the whole household.

I fully expect that somewhere in a conference room an AT&T executive is saying, "We're doing what?!" and this plan will come to a crashing end. But I'll enjoy it while I can.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

I just tried to buy one, AT&T could not find my account, even though I have long distance with them.

Landline is a separate company from wireless. There is not much crossover.

Coax is what I had on hand from building the house. From HD, maybe RG6? Didn't know I should have maybe used something better. Yagi came with a better coax but too short for my purpose. Can't complain since I'm pretty ignorant in these matters but it works great.

Bad, bad, bad. RG6 is 75 ohm cable. For radio applications, you need 50 ohm. You'll get much better performance with the correct cable, and you'll shorten the life of your device with the bad cable.

I fully expect that somewhere in a conference room an AT&T executive is saying, "We're doing what?!" and this plan will come to a crashing end. But I'll enjoy it while I can.

:laughing: You are probably right!

 

[cqaigy2]

I was successful when i asked them to wave the activation fee. I live far enough from cell tower that i get around -114 db and 2-4 Mb. Thats actually better then i was getting with another provider for a lot more money.

 

[k0ua]

Yea, some info here: AT&T Stand alone AT&T Unlimited ZTE Mobley Hotspot now only $20!!!!!

Carefully drilled, only 2 screws and 2 clips to remove cover.

Believe my Yagi is called a Triband.

Coax is what I had on hand from building the house. From HD, maybe RG6? Didn't know I should have maybe used something better. Yagi came with a better coax but too short for my purpose. Can't complain since I'm pretty ignorant in these matters but it works great.

I wouldn't be surprised if you have at least 10 db of loss in your coax run using RG6 coax at these frequencies. To prove it, take the mobely up on the roof and hook to the short piece of coax supplied with the yagi. I would be willing to double down on my 10 db loss prediction and it may be more. Also of some small consideration is the "impedance bump" and resulting extra loss due to mismatch between the probably 50 ohm design impedance of the yagi and the 75 ohm characteristic impedance of the RG6 coax.

The good news is it worked. It would have probably worked better with some LMR 400 or some superflex or some other larger more expensive coax. Of course there is the law of diminishing returns, that is how much money are you willing to put in to the installation vs the return of a better signal. Good coax ain't cheap, nor the connectors for it.

Coax Attenuation Chart

By the way a 10db loss in a run of coax is significant. It is a logarithmic scale, but in this case 10 db of loss can be understood in this way. If used for transmitting, if you put 10 watts of power in one end you get 1 watt of power out the other end. Or if used for receiving, you get 1/10 of the signal out the bottom as the antenna puts in to the top end. Yes that is a significant amount.

 

[k0ua]

The quick things to remember about coaxial cables are the smaller they are the more loss they will have at a given frequency. Also the longer they are the more loss they will have at a given frequency. And the higher the frequency you intend to utilize them at the more loss there will be for a given length.

It gets to the point that at higher frequencies, coax can no longer be utilized at all due to the losses incurred. Different transmission lines like waveguide is often used at these "microwave" frequencies as the size and cost of coaxial cables become prohibitive. At 1.9 Ghz or expressed another way as 1900Mhz these LTE signals are getting pretty high in frequency and our common coaxial cable runs must be kept very short and the largest and "best" coax we can afford must be used. As an example if a yagi antenna offers 13 db of gain, and we put a coax on it with 10 db of loss then the actual system gain is 3db. All to the good but it could be better if the coax was not so lossy.

 

[aeblank]

Not to breakup a good coax discussion, but........

Anybody have any sources for the Mobley these days? Ebay is bust (or $400+). Best buy....not within 250 miles. None on amazon. None at Walmart (store or online). Obviously at&t hasn't had any in forever.

I'm mighty glad I got mine when I did (11 days ago). My brother would like one, and I wouldn't mind a second one..........

 

[coldsteelva]

That makes me think they didn't expect quite the adoption rate us rural folks have mustered. In this thread, how many of us actually have one? 50; perhaps 100: how is it that nobody nationwide can get one now?

 

[aeblank]

Found a couple, but not saying where.. haha. That's if the FIL wants to go for a drive and get em.

 

[sodamo]

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

Thanks for the tutorial guys. Guess I'm lucky it works at all. Sure wish the folks at 4GAS had shared that when I asked about longer cables. But even so, my performance is better than my previous ISP. Does make me wonder if that was a factor in my poor TMobile performance, showed excellent signal strength but Speedtest was around 120-130 kbs.