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

[TractorGuy]

Looks like AT&T is cutting my tower off. Stuck the unit in my truck and drove towards town. About 9 miles from the house it woke up.

EDIT: Could just be a coincidence but I downloaded the AT&T Mark the Spot APP to my Verizon phone and reported the data loss through that this morning. Reset the Mobley tonight and it is connected and is flying.

This time I hung it in the window so it's inside the blinds so that should help keep the heat off of it.

It is working wireless through my GL-AR300 router. For some reason my cameras will not connect so I may have to reset those and start from scratch which is another PITA.

 

[TractorGuy]

My situation took a turn for the worst. Mobley lost connection again and I have no way to figure out if it's the unit or tower signal. I am thinking it's the tower.

In the meantime something has changed in the router so I can no longer access my network cameras, Chromecast, or anything else on my home network. I can still log into my router so I don't know why the cameras are not talking to it. It seems it changes channel every time. I have tried setting the channel and also tried the channel setting on auto to no avail.

I guess I will try calling AT&T on Monday and see if they can get me going. After I get a stable internet I reckon I'll have to set everything back up on the network.

 

[BigBlue1]

My Mobley update:

I've been using the Mobley since late winter 2017. For most of that time it has pulled 22-33 Mb/s and been a very solid Internet connection for us. In early June the speeds dropped noticeably and I started experiencing bad latency and halting throughput. Eventually realized that the AT&T signal in general at my location was significantly worse than it used to be. Family uses AT&T cell phones and they all are down to 1-2 bars now on a regular basis instead of the 3-4 we used to get. My Galaxy S6 phone which used to pull 55-60 Mb/s at home now is lucky to get 25. The Mobley dropped from the 22-33 level to 6-9 Mb/s.

I don't believe any of the problem is related to the Mobley. I suspect that either AT&T has a problem with the closest tower we connect to, made changes that altered the tower's power, or perhaps changed a contract with a 3rd party tower operator and now we're having to connect to a tower further away. In any event it sucks because it really hurt the data connection.

However, I did learn of an app that can tell you tower signal strength so I got that and started searching around the house for best signal. Turns out that 6 feet from where the Mobley used to sit on top of my desk is a window and right in that window the signal is a lot better. So much so that after moving the Mobley to the window it's now back to getting 30 Mb/s and the bad latency and halting has disappeared. Makes me wonder what I could have gotten in that position back when I was getting better speeds on the desk? So, at this point I'm back to happy with the situation and hopefully I can continue to ride the cheap/unlimited Internet boat for a while longer.

I did recently learn of a 3rd party offering the same basic service as the Mobley. They use what appears to be a better cell modem that is intended as a fixed base station and also has built-in wifi. Still uses AT&T's cell service and offers unlimited data for $89.99/month. The device costs $300 though. Definitely not as good of a deal as the Mobley but if/when AT&T pulls the plug on unlimited data or skyrockets the price of the Mobley plan it may be a good alternative. The company is called UbiFi.

Another note on the Mobley... We routinely push well over 200 GB per month through it and have never been throttled. Since I use it in a very low population area I think the throttling is unlikely because the network is unlikely to ever be congested.

Rob

 

[newbury]

My Mobley update:

I've been using the Mobley since late winter 2017. For most of that time it has pulled 22-33 Mb/s and been a very solid Internet connection for us. In early June the speeds dropped noticeably and I started experiencing bad latency and halting throughput. Eventually realized that the AT&T signal in general at my location was significantly worse than it used to be. Family uses AT&T cell phones and they all are down to 1-2 bars now on a regular basis instead of the 3-4 we used to get. My Galaxy S6 phone which used to pull 55-60 Mb/s at home now is lucky to get 25. The Mobley dropped from the 22-33 level to 6-9 Mb/s.

I don't believe any of the problem is related to the Mobley. I suspect that either AT&T has a problem with the closest tower we connect to, made changes that altered the tower's power, or perhaps changed a contract with a 3rd party tower operator and now we're having to connect to a tower further away. In any event it sucks because it really hurt the data connection.

However, I did learn of an app that can tell you tower signal strength so I got that and started searching around the house for best signal. Turns out that 6 feet from where the Mobley used to sit on top of my desk is a window and right in that window the signal is a lot better. So much so that after moving the Mobley to the window it's now back to getting 30 Mb/s and the bad latency and halting has disappeared. Makes me wonder what I could have gotten in that position back when I was getting better speeds on the desk? So, at this point I'm back to happy with the situation and hopefully I can continue to ride the cheap/unlimited Internet boat for a while longer.

I did recently learn of a 3rd party offering the same basic service as the Mobley. They use what appears to be a better cell modem that is intended as a fixed base station and also has built-in wifi. Still uses AT&T's cell service and offers unlimited data for $89.99/month. The device costs $300 though. Definitely not as good of a deal as the Mobley but if/when AT&T pulls the plug on unlimited data or skyrockets the price of the Mobley plan it may be a good alternative. The company is called UbiFi.

Another note on the Mobley... We routinely push well over 200 GB per month through it and have never been throttled. Since I use it in a very low population area I think the throttling is unlikely because the network is unlikely to ever be congested.

Rob

C'mon man - provide links to the app and the device.

 

[BigBlue1]

C'mon man - provide links to the app and the device.

ubifi.net

Sorry, assumed a quick Google search on UbiFi would be adequate...

 

[kcflhrc]

My Mobley is still working fine through my Asus router for $22 a month. I don't see how the Ubifi is comparable to that at $90 a month

 

[BigBlue1]

My Mobley is still working fine through my Asus router for $22 a month. I don't see how the Ubifi is comparable to that at $90 a month

It's comparable in that it is the same basic service. Obviously the price is not close at all. But the AT&T $20 unlimited plan cannot last forever, so when they pull the plug or jack the price sky high (which is what I said above) then it will possibly be a viable alternative.

Rob

 

[davrow]

ubifi.net

Sorry, assumed a quick Google search on UbiFi would be adequate...

For ubifi, sure... but I think he meant the signal strength app:

C'mon man - provide links to the app and the device.

What app did you use? What device did you run the app on?

 

[kf4uda]

My Mobley is still doing great. They have never throttled the speeds on it. My service was $22.01. It went up a few months back to $23.24. I don't expect the deal to last but I will ride it for as long as I can.

 

[STx]

My Mobley is still working fine through my Asus router for $22 a month. I don't see how the Ubifi is comparable to that at $90 a month

The Mobley plan says that you may be throttled after 20GB, Ubifi is unlimited with no throttling threshold.

I bet that you could take the SIM out of a Mobley and put it into a Mofi so you have a fixed station with built in WiFi and better cell antennas but still only pay $20/mo. You still run the risk of being throttled though.