Ubifi Rural Internet

[TheMan419]

I've had UBIFI for a few months now (thanks theman!). I"m about 4 miles from the nearest tower; there are two towers that have decent links. One thing to look at is to limit the bands you use on the Mofi so it switches between those that have good levels. I'm using an external antenna fed with lmr400. Initially I tried to use a directional antenna, but couldn't get a good signal. Then I purchased a 9 dB omni antenna which worked well and is what I'm using at this time. As far as speeds go, it ranges from 2 - 47 MB, usually in the range of 10 - 30 MB. Only saw the 47MB once, though. I also kept my fixed wireless link through Rise Broadband, so I've actually got redundant links, which is nice.

Mark

You are welcome.

 

[tractorshopper]

The wife and I have been running Internet speed tests on our cell phones since last weekend. The results are interesting.

We have run 22 tests on various days and times. Our average is 10.28 down, 6.13 up, and 40.18 latency. My phone is older than the wife's the averages for down/up/latency are 8.11/5.97/40.0 vs 13.4/6.35/40.44. Most of these numbers are from inside the house but we have started to go outside where we have a direct line of sight to the tower. My best numbers from outside are 20.9/14.1/38 while the wife's best are 25.3/12.9/39.

Got all of this in a spread sheet which I need to modify again because the few outside tests results are so high they are inflating the averages. Just looking at the data and it looks like the outside tests are 3-4 times faster than the inside the house tests. That says we need to get a directional antennae. :thumbsup:

Back to the averages of 10.28/6.13/40.18. Those numbers are sooooo much better than the 1.5/.75 DSL service we have. We have two 1.5 lines which we can cancel with one Ubifi network.

Our old Directv dish is on a pole to get a line of sight to the satellite. I should be able to use the same pole and existing coax to mount a directional antennae for the cell. Hope that works.

Later,
Dan

The Mofi 4500 unit itself will get better signal in your house than your phones will. You may not need an antenna outside at all. Not trying to talk you out of that of course, just saying that when my phone is getting 3 down and 1.something up, the Mofi is getting 10-12 down and 5-6 up. Occasionally, it will get 20 down and 8 up. I'm buying the directional antenna because it seems to lock onto one tower more than any other and only one other tower ever, so I plan to shoot at both of them and see which one is better, with the hopes of being at 20 or above regularly.

All that said, I averaged about 7-10 down all evening (checked repeatedly) and was able to Netflix on 3 devices including the main TV still with very good quality. I just want to get completely 4K quality off the video even with the kids streaming too.

 

[dmccarty]

The Mofi 4500 unit itself will get better signal in your house than your phones will. You may not need an antenna outside at all. Not trying to talk you out of that of course, just saying that when my phone is getting 3 down and 1.something up, the Mofi is getting 10-12 down and 5-6 up. Occasionally, it will get 20 down and 8 up. I'm buying the directional antenna because it seems to lock onto one tower more than any other and only one other tower ever, so I plan to shoot at both of them and see which one is better, with the hopes of being at 20 or above regularly.

All that said, I averaged about 7-10 down all evening (checked repeatedly) and was able to Netflix on 3 devices including the main TV still with very good quality. I just want to get completely 4K quality off the video even with the kids streaming too.

The wife and I first discussed getting the MoFi, seeing what data rate we get and then decide about the antennae. I am on the fence about this but given the increased speed we are seeing outside. Flip side, is that the MoFi will be in a room we have not been doing speed tests. It just so happens the wifey ran a speed test in that room this morning and got 31 down and 5.8 up. That room is likely to get a better signal than the room we have been testing in. I think we will start doing some tests in that room as well. Just have to update the spreadsheet.

Which begats the question of how fast is fast enough? :laughing::laughing::laughing: Given that 10-12 is 7-8 times what we are getting now that would seem to be fast enough.

I would guess most people don't care up upload speed that much but it is a big deal to me. I would love to upload some of my photos to a web hosting service but a 50MB file going over a .75 mbps link is painful. The upload speeds we are seeing, and people are reporting, means we might be able to back up data to the cloud.

Later,
Dan

 

[kcflhrc]

Yes, the paths can be different but that is what we are doing multiple tests on different days and times. It all averages out. The average numbers we are seeing right now are 14 to 18 times BETTER than the crappy Century Link 1.5 DSL server we pay too much for. If Century Link would upgrade our network, for which they have taken tax dollars, and provide 10 mbps service for $22 a month, we would keep it, but we are paying around $130 a month for two 1.5 mbps lines and phone service.

Century Link has a monopoly in our area and we have no other service providers except cell service. We are not out in the middle of no where either.


ATT has a similar service to Ubifi which costs $50 a month but it is sorta capped. If on exceeds a limit, they charge you another $10 for a bunch of data. They will repeat that up to I think it was $200 in total charges. My guess is that Ubifi, and similar companies, are buying ATT access, charging a bit more and either paying for un capped data or they have figured out that the average of all of their customers will not violate some ATT limit.

Later,
Dan

Just to clear up a few myths here. CenturyLink doesn't have a monopoly in any market. Anyone is able to come in and put service in your area. But they don't because it is too expensive and the return on investment in rural areas takes years.

As to the Tax dollars CenturyLink gets for the CAF, aka, Connect America Fund. You are correct in one way that it is mandated to supply a minimum of 10 meg, but newsflash, the Fed's tell the Telco's where to set those boxes based on population. So if you have 20 houses to the north and 5 to the south then the 20 houses to the north get service and the one's to the south get zip.

Hopefully that help explains some things

 

[tractorshopper]

The wife and I first discussed getting the MoFi, seeing what data rate we get and then decide about the antennae. I am on the fence about this but given the increased speed we are seeing outside. Flip side, is that the MoFi will be in a room we have not been doing speed tests. It just so happens the wifey ran a speed test in that room this morning and got 31 down and 5.8 up. That room is likely to get a better signal than the room we have been testing in. I think we will start doing some tests in that room as well. Just have to update the spreadsheet.

Which begats the question of how fast is fast enough? :laughing::laughing::laughing: Given that 10-12 is 7-8 times what we are getting now that would seem to be fast enough.

I would guess most people don't care up upload speed that much but it is a big deal to me. I would love to upload some of my photos to a web hosting service but a 50MB file going over a .75 mbps link is painful. The upload speeds we are seeing, and people are reporting, means we might be able to back up data to the cloud.

Later,
Dan

Dan, I moved the Mofi until all over the house last night to find the best consistent spot. No surprise, the best spot was upstairs. My external antenna will be here tomorrow and I will try it out pointing to both towers I can receive from to see which is best, then it won't matter so much where I put the Mofi inside the house, but I'm leaning toward back downstairs more toward the center of the house.

I only bought a 20 foot cable though so I may have to adjust based on that. I wish it was a regular coax type cable because I've got that stuff run all over the house already.

 

[Alan W.]

What will happen when 5G service becomes available. Being abit ignorant of these things, will Ubify, Mofi, the Wilson booster I have and our phones work or will they have to be upgraded.

 

[kcflhrc]

What will happen when 5G service becomes available. Being abit ignorant of these things, will Ubify, Mofi, the Wilson booster I have and our phones work or will they have to be upgraded.

There will be a long transition time when 4G and 5G will run side by side, years. Then eventually 4G will go away and then 5G and the next G will run side by side. Kinda like where vehicle manufacturers have to supply parts for at least 10 years on a model.

 

[STx]

Just like 3G and 4G are right now.

 

[TheMan419]

So i was getting really bad speeds on the unit just now. Went to look at it. I moved it a few inches to the left in the window it sits in and boom speeds went from 2mb to 10 mb.

As for those asking how fast is fast enough.... well that depends on what all you are wanting to do. 5mb is enough for ONE device to stream a high def movie/tv show assuming nothing else significant is being done over your connection. So 10mb for TWO etc.

For email and general web browsing.... I dunno. I went from 2mb to 10mb when I got the MoFi, what a difference!

 

[kcflhrc]

You can also modify how much bandwidth NetFlix uses in your account settings because if you don't it will use it all