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

[Xfaxman]

Welshman, do a search for"fixed wireless internet providers near me".

We had one before we moved here. It uses a small antenna outside of your house, pointed at their tower:

 

[kcflhrc]

I said typical. As in pretty much every residential data plan I've ever seen advertised had an upload speed in the neighborhood of 20% of download speeds. Not exact, sometimes more or less, but closer to 20% than 1% or 50%, typically. If your experience is different then I guess we live in different markets.

And in any event, my overall point was that exceptionally slow upload speeds, such as those reported by the guy I was replying to, are not normal.

Rob

Yep, different markets and different ISP's will vary widely on upload vs download. Just didn't want people thinking they should be seeing their upload speeds within 20% of their download speed across the board, because it sure isn't that way. Here's a very good example of this in regards to CAF.

What are the minimum requirements for broadband services under CAF?

The companies that accepted CAF Phase II support must meet the following requirements for voice and broadband services:

Speed: Service providers must offer broadband at speeds of at least 10 megabits per second downstream and 1 Mbps upstream.
Latency: Service providers' network latency cannot be higher than 100 milliseconds round trip. Latency is the time it takes for a data packet to travel back and forth through a network.
Usage Allowance: Currently, the carrier must offer at least one plan with a minimum usage allowance of at least 150 gigabytes per month, or in certain circumstances, a plan with 100 GB of usage.
Pricing: Service providers must offer service at rates reasonably comparable to rates in urban areas.

 

[Welshman]

Welshman, do a search for"fixed wireless internet providers near me".

We had one before we moved here. It uses a small antenna outside of your house, pointed at their tower:

I got an email from this site showing a post by you that I intended to reply to - but I don't see the post???
You asked about OTRMobile, and I am planning to switch to them. I'm a deliberator - and I'm trying to get as much information as I can.

 

[Xfaxman]

I got an email from this site showing a post by you that I intended to reply to - but I don't see the post???
You asked about OTRMobile, and I am planning to switch to them. I'm a deliberator - and I'm trying to get as much information as I can.

Yep, I deleted it because you had answered the questions while I was typing it.

If you can get reception from an AT&T tower, go for the Mobley, it is a limited time offer like the first one was, so don't deliberate too long .

I have had mine since April of 2017. So far so good :thumbsup:.

 

[hawkeye08]

Regarding speeds, We have a 10M down, 4M up plan. Our wireless link (ISP is wireless) can run 50M down, 50M up but we are throttled to what we purchase mostly.. I had dismal speeds last fall and it took awhile to get them out and admit that it was a marginal signal and to fix it. My office has wired connections, family room has wired, so its the devices further away or mobile that are connected to my WiFi access point. I went to a separate router and wireless to avoid the constant questions when there is problem.I like it better and I have my old router/access point as a backup if ever needed.

I ran the ISP speed test a few minutes ago, 20M down, 4M up, ran the app speedtest.net and got 10.93M down, 3.92M up and ran speedof.me test several times and got 4-6M down, 1-3M up.. Agree that speed tests vary, but it is a relative test to see if there is a problem. When I had 512kbs service, 128kbs was normal upload speed.. That ISP had a great system, but was not able to keep up with the changing environment, streaming videos, etc.

 

[Welshman]

Is the SIM in the Mobley removable - and if so, for those that are having reception issues, couldn't the SIM be installed in a better device and still remain on the $20. Mobley plan?

 

[kc5dlo]

Is the SIM in the Mobley removable - and if so, for those that are having reception issues, couldn't the SIM be installed in a better device and still remain on the $20. Mobley plan?

I can confirm that there is a replaceable sim card in the Mobley. Got mine a couple of weeks ago and had to get another sim card to get it working. Not sure about the answer to the second part of your question.

 

[coldsteelva]

I'm fairly certain (but haven't tried) that both the SIM ID (ICC ID) and Device ID (IMEI) are paired within the ATT system in order to make it actually function on their network. I guess it's possible to test by putting a known working SIM from a cell phone or prepaid service into it.

 

[Welshman]

I'm fairly certain (but haven't tried) that both the SIM ID (ICC ID) and Device ID (IMEI) are paired within the ATT system in order to make it actually function on their network. I guess it's possible to test by putting a known working SIM from a cell phone or prepaid service into it.

That makes sense.

 

[sodamo]

I use a Mobley sim in my Explorer, works great.

 

[Garandman]

We had a $30 a month plan from FairPoint in NH. They got acquired by Consolidated Communications, and raised the price to $52 a month.

We have really good Cell service: there is a tower on the summit of Mt Sunapee, 1.6 miles away. Anyone use one of the Verizon hubs?

Arlo now makes a system called Arlo Go that uses a wireless connection. Anyone using it?

 

[kf4uda]

My Mobley is still working good and still unlimited at $23.24 total. The only thing I don’t like is the 2 hour timeout they put on it with the last firmware update. Has anybody come up with a good way around that?

 

[cqaigy2]

I'm not sure why, but i've not had the problem with the 2 hour time out. One thing that is probably different in my setup, is i have my Mobley connected via USB to an Orb firmware flashed router, and from that, ethernet to my firewall.

I tried to connect directly to Fortigate firewall, but never was able to get it to recognize the Mobley on USB. So i tried using, The Golden Orb, firmware on Netgear router was very easy to setup and immediately saw the Mobley as an interface.

 

[jcummins]

I'm not sure why, but i've not had the problem with the 2 hour time out. One thing that is probably different in my setup, is i have my Mobley connected via USB to an Orb firmware flashed router, and from that, ethernet to my firewall.

I tried to connect directly to Fortigate firewall, but never was able to get it to recognize the Mobley on USB. So i tried using, The Golden Orb, firmware on Netgear router was very easy to setup and immediately saw the Mobley as an interface.

Nor have I. I'm using a trendnet router.

Question for those with Mobley and a router......have you or can you route an outside IP address?

 

[BigBlue1]

My Mobley still doesn't timeout either. I believe the 'never sleep' setting is gone from the admin page and I've certainly power cycled it a bunch* but the timeout has not taken effect. My setup is Mobley connected via USB to Asus router.

*Couple months back it would drop connection randomly, but not on a timed cycle, so I had to pull the power cord quite often - that fixed itself.

 

[TractorGuy]

My Mobley died last year about this time. No amount of power cycling or resetting would bring it back to life. I have to keep the unit in a window to get a signal and I think the heat just did it in.

I purchased a used unlocked ZTE Velocity MF923 Mobile WiFi Hotspot for AT&T off ebay for $23 and stuck the Mobley sim card in it. It's been working okay but I go through cycles of having to restart it. I still have to have it in the window but I have it mounted inside the blinds to try and help with the heat issue. When I log in to AT&T it recognizes that I am using the Velocity rather than a Mobley and my bill has not changed. Knock on wood! We recently took a trip to Daytona and I took the Velocity with us. In the hotel it connected at a consistent 20M down sitting on the dresser.

We use a lot of bandwidth so I don't know if AT&T is throttling me or if the unit is flakey or the tower is getting bogged down. When it slows too much or sometimes just flat quits I can restart it and usually it comes back to full signal. For me that is 10-13 M. I think I'm about 9 miles from their nearest tower with lots of trees in between. I would think if I was being throttled that a restart would have no effect so I imagine the issue lies between the tower traffic or my unit.

My GL-AR300EXT router with the external antennas has performed flawlessly and never needs a restart. I connect the router to the Velocity wirelessly and log everything in the home into the router. I have had one of my wifi cameras as far as 300 feet from the house. I can connect as far as 500 feet but not reliably.

 

[newbury]

I recently had major internet problems. My aging ISP router was failing. Required rebooting twice a day. We are trying to keep the ISP's router/modem because other relatives use the house when we are gone. I had previously used my Mobley down at my shop (about 100 yards away) but was unable to get a good signal at the house, I went around to every window and the best I was getting was about 1.6 down

So I finally broke down and got another router from my ISP. But just before I picked it up I laid my Mobley down by a window where I had been getting 1.6 down. But I put it down on the left side of the 30" wide window. And I got 15 to 22Mbps down.

So I ran with that for a few weeks, never a 2 hour time out. Got a new router from my ISP.

 

[sodamo]

Mines been pretty solid as well. Hooked to my GL router and then to Picostation for my outside signal. Planning to add another Picostation to expand my reach when on tractor.

 

[Xfaxman]

My Mobley is still working good and still unlimited at $23.24 total. The only thing I don稚 like is the 2 hour timeout they put on it with the last firmware update. Has anybody come up with a good way around that?

Have you tried picking it up and slightly shaking it? There are many posts in other forums that the Mobley might have an accelerometer inside of it, here is one: AT&T Pushes Mobley Firmware Update VM62V1..3 - Removes 'No Time Out' Power Save Setting - Mobile Internet Resource Center

There are also posts that say it is position sensitive and won't time out after moving it to a certain position, like the connector down.

When I got mine in April of 2017 it would time out. When I picked it up it would come back on. Now after the updates it doesn't time out.

No router on mine.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Mine does not time out. Connected to router.