Ubifi Rural Internet

[dmccarty]

We got UbiFi about a year ago and have been very happy with the service. I wonder if the cheaper services would be just as good but we gots what we gots.

I have not checked the data rate but we have uses as much as 106 GB in one month with no issues. Our average usage has been almost 67 GB per month though I have not checked the last few months.

The MoFi is just sitting in one room with sorta the best path to the cell tower. We should get the external antennae but we have not done so since the service is working well enough.

We were living on a boat in a marina for a week a few months back. We were told the WiFi in the marina was not so good so we just took the MoFi to the boat, plugged it in, and we were good to go. It worked just fine even though we were in a different state.

Ubifi is much better than the $%^&*()_ "service" from CenturyLink.

Later,
Dan

 

[cqaigy2]

It's $30/mo if you buy direct from AT&T instead of Ubifi, same service either way. The MOFI is $300 direct from them but, I'm starting to see a lot of knock-offs on Amazon for a lot less. I just bought one of these for $230, it physically looks the same but, I haven't tested it yet - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1Z41R9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Here is an option for $91, I haven't tried it yet - https://smile.amazon.com/Huawei-Rou...er+huawei&qid=1575640939&s=electronics&sr=1-2.

I know there's a lot to read in this thread now but, if you go through it you'll find that I've given you step by step instructions to do this a lot cheaper than Ubifi is charging, although the expenses are front loaded, once you pay them you're done for the year.

I'm pretty sure you can call 911 from a cell phone and they'll know where the call is coming from now. I haven't had a land line for probably 15 years, we've used cell phones and VoIP since it became practical to do so.

As far as speeds are concerned, there's no guarantee but I haven't had mine below 25MB even in the evening when everyone is home and streaming YouTube videos.

What does AT&T call the service?

 

[STx]

What does AT&T call the service?

You can't get it from a rep, it's only available at Login. The plans there will be different based on the IMEI of the device you're using, the Sierra card in the MOFI has a plan that is $360 for a year of unlimited data. We have that one and routinely use 300GB per month.

 

[jjoel]

You can't get it from a rep, it's only available at [link]. The plans there will be different based on the IMEI of the device you're using, the Sierra card in the MOFI has a plan that is $360 for a year of unlimited data. We have that one and routinely use 300GB per month.

Diddo everything that STx just said. I just checked and we've been going through about 180GB a month. I suspect that will go up now that I've upgraded to 4K tv and have Disney+. No issues streaming 4K. Catching up on all the Marvel movies these days

 

[jjoel]

Hey STx, have you checked recently to see if the unlimited data for 12 month plan is still available? I'm thinking AT&T has changed things up.

 

[STx]

Yes, they got rid of it in Feb. You can buy SIM cards with unlimited data on eBay for $50/mo. I haven't gotten one, my plan is good for a few more months.

 

[RalphVa]

We've DSL and can stream videos through Roku Tubi or Roku channel if the speed stays up around 1.3 MB/s.

Lately, with this new computer and now on Firefox, the computer access is really good. Had a Zoom meeting yesterday, and I was doing some stuff on the other monitor from the internet during the meeting. Got the occasional "unstable internet" message popping up.

Ralph

 

[jjoel]

Yes, they got rid of it in Feb. You can buy SIM cards with unlimited data on eBay for $50/mo. I haven't gotten one, my plan is good for a few more months.

That's what I was afraid of. A quick look at ebay tells me that the $50 option is for customer renewal not for new customers. Looks like it means customers of the ebay seller (not customer of AT&T). I have until July 5 to get this figured out. I've been on paternity leave from work and since I've been out our office has shut down and everyone is forced to work from home, so I have to have a good internet connection.

I keep hoping that T-Mobile would come up with 4G LTE internet for everyone but the merger (just closed yesterday) has taken a lot longer than expected. I am a firm believer that the rural USA is (purposefully) oppressed from good internet. My only other option at the moment is to go with Hughesnet and I chose to go without home internet for over a year instead of going with satellite when we moved out to the country.

 

[BigBlue1]

I keep hoping that T-Mobile would come up with 4G LTE internet for everyone but the merger (just closed yesterday) has taken a lot longer than expected. I am a firm believer that the rural USA is (purposefully) oppressed from good internet. My only other option at the moment is to go with Hughesnet and I chose to go without home internet for over a year instead of going with satellite when we moved out to the country.

I don't think there is purposefulness to it; it's more a matter of return on investment. Providers consider how much money they can make against the investment they have to put forth to connect those under-served customers. In rural areas the density of residences and, therefore, hook-ups is much lower than in cities or metro areas. And distances are greater. So it costs them more to run cable or fiber to get fewer customers. It just doesn't make good business sense. It could cost them millions of dollars to run 5 miles of fiber and they might only end up with 50 customers. 50 customers paying $100/mo would take a LONG time to pay off that investment before any profit can be made.

Believe me, I wish that weren't true. I live in a rural area. I'd LOVE cable modem speeds here. But it is very slow to happen and it really only happens when government helps providers foot the infrastructure investment via subsidies. Which I'm also not a great fan of because it is a general fund expenditure going to a limited subset of the population. I think 5G or another wireless technology will be needed to actually bring reliable high speed Internet to rural areas. Physical lines are never going to be feasible from a cost perspective.

Rob

 

[dmccarty]

I don't think there is purposefulness to it; it's more a matter of return on investment. Providers consider how much money they can make against the investment they have to put forth to connect those under-served customers. In rural areas the density of residences and, therefore, hook-ups is much lower than in cities or metro areas. And distances are greater. So it costs them more to run cable or fiber to get fewer customers. It just doesn't make good business sense. It could cost them millions of dollars to run 5 miles of fiber and they might only end up with 50 customers. 50 customers paying $100/mo would take a LONG time to pay off that investment before any profit can be made.

Believe me, I wish that weren't true. I live in a rural area. I'd LOVE cable modem speeds here. But it is very slow to happen and it really only happens when government helps providers foot the infrastructure investment via subsidies....

Rob

Most of my county has CenturyLink DSL, or as one customer just called them, CenturyStink, and CenturyLink is not upgrading/fixing their network, which is why they have so many complaints in my county.

Having said that, a small mom and pop Internet service company is running fiber in some of the most rural areas of the county! I have heard nothing but good about that company. Unfortunately, we are not anywhere near where this company is laying fiber. They might be getting some of the tax money that is allocated for increasing access/speed to rural area. Whatever their business plan, it seems to be working. None of the big companies will provide enhanced service to my area even though it is fairly dense housing wise.

We have been using UbiFi for a year and have been happy with it. Much more reliable and faster speeds than CenturyLink.

Later,
Dan