Would navigating to speedtest.net in a mobile browser yield the same results?
OTR Mobile Internet?
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Last: 2 yr ago by BrazosDog02
I believe they make you use their app now. I could be wrong, but I just tried that on my phone and it just provides a link for the app.
Personally, I like http://fast.com since it shows loaded and unloaded latency.
Starting with a phone to test speeds is the first step, but it isn't the be-all end-all. I get 1 bar to no bars in my house, but I have a direct line of sight to the towers from the roof of my home. With external antennas, I'm able to get a great signal that would be terrible without them.
It can be as simple as buy it and plug it in, but there will almost always be a hiccup somewhere. Many had sim card issues, some have had router or modem issues, and signal can move around on you. It can be a frustrating process to figure out, but when it's all said and done, you will be much happier than 5mpbs. We can stream multiple 4k videos in our house with few issues. It's not perfect, but it's great in comparison.
Starting with a phone to test speeds is the first step, but it isn't the be-all end-all. I get 1 bar to no bars in my house, but I have a direct line of sight to the towers from the roof of my home. With external antennas, I'm able to get a great signal that would be terrible without them.
It can be as simple as buy it and plug it in, but there will almost always be a hiccup somewhere. Many had sim card issues, some have had router or modem issues, and signal can move around on you. It can be a frustrating process to figure out, but when it's all said and done, you will be much happier than 5mpbs. We can stream multiple 4k videos in our house with few issues. It's not perfect, but it's great in comparison.
Got the orders submitted for a refurbished modem, sim card, and service. Fingers crossed for an easy, seamless install. Cell on AT&T was getting 15 or so Mbps down. Not great, but better than 5.
I came back around to this after replacing the roof. We put a metal roof on our house, and I couldn't bring myself to let Rise get up there and put that **** on my roof again. I kicked them to the curb and am using a pretty basic little hotspot with Gypsy Wireless as the provider. So far, so good. It's not perfect, but Rise wasn't either. This is definitely more consistent than my WISP was.
Excuse my ignorance but I'm not tech savvy at all. Me and my wife have just finished a barndominium way out in the woods. Cell reception is almost non existent with it having a metal roof and being out in the woods. I can get decent reception on the perimeter of the house but nothing in the middle. We recently quit direct and went strictly streaming has anyone had any experience with something like this? Any suggestions? Thanks!
Exactly my situation. I use a signal booster to capture and amplify the cell signal inside to make the OTR usable. I detailed my experience here a few pages back. Still happy.
The easiest way would be a booster from WeBoost, SureCall, etc. and then put the modem near the indoor antenna.
Antennas on the roof that are wired into the home and connected directly to a modem like a Cradlepoint are another option.
I have a booster for my cell phones and also antennas for my modem that are not boosted. The reason I don't boost my modem is so it can take advantage of carrier aggregation (multiple connections for one device). It's a trial and error thing you would have to check out if you want to deep dive into it.
Sometimes a booster is better, sometimes just antennas are better, but just a booster is easy.
Antennas on the roof that are wired into the home and connected directly to a modem like a Cradlepoint are another option.
I have a booster for my cell phones and also antennas for my modem that are not boosted. The reason I don't boost my modem is so it can take advantage of carrier aggregation (multiple connections for one device). It's a trial and error thing you would have to check out if you want to deep dive into it.
Sometimes a booster is better, sometimes just antennas are better, but just a booster is easy.
Got it all set up and was getting 2 to 7 Mbps download speeds. Chatted with OTR tech support, they are sending a new SIM card this week. Praying this speeds things up.
Also, walk around the house and find your strongest signal. If you don't have a booster or external antennas then this can make a big difference.
If you have an android get this app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfo&hl=en_US
Here's how to get your signal strength on iOS.
https://www.macworld.com/article/3346027/how-to-see-your-true-cellular-signal-strength-with-the-iphone-field-test-app.html
If you have an android get this app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfo&hl=en_US
Here's how to get your signal strength on iOS.
https://www.macworld.com/article/3346027/how-to-see-your-true-cellular-signal-strength-with-the-iphone-field-test-app.html
The strongest service is in the front of my home. I bought the otr unit today and am now looking at routers. Does the otr plug directly into the router? Or will the router be centrally located in my home and connect wirelessly? I'm also a little confused on the booster. Some say it helps a lot and I've also seen where it didn't work at all on here. Thanks in advance for your help!
Yes, if you bought a hotspot from them, it would act just like a modem you would get from AT&T or Time Warner/Spectrum. It would be the "internet" input feed into your router with a wired connection.CoachBell11 said:
The strongest service is in the front of my home. I bought the otr unit today and am now looking at routers. Does the otr plug directly into the router? Or will the router be centrally located in my home and connect wirelessly? I'm also a little confused on the booster. Some say it helps a lot and I've also seen where it didn't work at all on here. Thanks in advance for your help!
I'm still learning about boosters, antennas, etc., for this type of system, so I can't be of much help there. From what I have researched, a booster would be beneficial if the signal strength outside of your house is strong, but weak inside. And you need a minimum distance between the outside and inside components of the booster. An antenna would be beneficial if the signal strength outside your home is weak. TFunk02 is a great resource on this topic, so hopefully he'll be back around soon. He posted a link to an app that may be able to help you determine signal strengths. You'll still have to decipher the data it gives you to know what you're looking at; that's where I am at the moment. Our download speeds with OTR, with a new SIM card, are still between 2 and 7 Mbps. We can stream to one device, but it still occasionally buffers.
Just want to say, my household accomplished something that it hasn't since I've been in my house using Rise Broadband or is predecessor over the past 10 years. Yesterday, two TVs going on live football games & another tv streaming Netflix. Thank you so much to this thread for putting me down the road to being done with Rise. No more elevator music and asking me if I have restarted my router... please don't ever kill this AT&T.
What download speeds are you achieving?
You've got it backwards. Your options are to use the onboard antenna on the modem, use an exterior and interior antenna (the exterior captures the signal and repeats it indoors with the interior antenna) this provides moderate gain on the signal. A booster Is the same setup with an amplifier in line between the two antennas to provide additional gain. If you have acceptable service outside, but it doesn't penetrate the structure you can use just the antennas (this can yield better results than a booster depending on the circumstances), if you have poor signal outside you can add in the amplifier, if you have little to no signal you're SOL and need to wait for a WISP to come to your area or for satellite internet to improve (it's coming in the next couple of years).
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Electrical_Ag said:
What download speeds are you achieving?
Not great, maybe 10 down when I test, but it performs better than my Rise ever did at speeds 2x as much. I'm not smart enough to know why.
What is the OTR? It looks like they have 3 modems you can buy now. I started with their Nighthawk before upgrading to a Cradlepoint modem (not from them). I just use their sim card in my own modem that connects with a wire to my router and wifi.CoachBell11 said:
The strongest service is in the front of my home. I bought the otr unit today and am now looking at routers. Does the otr plug directly into the router? Or will the router be centrally located in my home and connect wirelessly? I'm also a little confused on the booster. Some say it helps a lot and I've also seen where it didn't work at all on here. Thanks in advance for your help!
The wireless modems can take up to a 4x4 signal from the cell tower. That means 4up and 4 down.
A booster will limit you to one signal up and down. Sometimes boosters will help if it gets a better signal than you can get without one, but sometimes due to the ability to take more signals from the tower having just the modem and maybe an antenna is better. For my case a Modem with an external antenna on my roof works best for internet while a booster for the phones in the house gives us what we need for the phones (no wifi calling allowed with our service).
This is where the frustration can get some people. I recommend buying a lot of different things from a place with a good return policy and then return what didn't help you out.
tfunk - just ordered 2 antennas for the cradlepoint I have. Where did you find long, low loss cables? I will probably need 30ish feet of cable for each antenna...
TIA
***DISREGARD - found your post that outlines the equipment you are using....
TIA
***DISREGARD - found your post that outlines the equipment you are using....
I thought the bump was going to be due to the outage yesterday. My internet was down for a few hours and had to have OTR reset my account.
Good luck!
Good luck!
I currently have an MR1100 unlimited directly through AT&T. I'm reading through this thread and I see references to using the cradlepoont AND the MR1100. Why I'm the world are y'all doing that? I'm confused.
My MR1100 is connected directly to my Netgear X6S AC4000 via WAN port and Ethernet.
What are y'all doing with the cradlepoint? Trying to understand and perhaps see if it's somehow different than my setup.
My MR1100 is connected directly to my Netgear X6S AC4000 via WAN port and Ethernet.
What are y'all doing with the cradlepoint? Trying to understand and perhaps see if it's somehow different than my setup.
Don't think anyone is using it simultaneously, unless I missed it. tfunk had the Nighthawk before upgrading to a Cradlepoint, because the Nighthawk was overheating during his use. You need one Modem and with the Cradlepoint you need a secondary WiFi router (if I recall correctly the lower end one doesn't provide WiFi).
If your Nighthawk works, that's all you'd need.
If your Nighthawk works, that's all you'd need.
.
Anybody having issues today? Mine's been down all day and I just got home and my Netgear modem app says no cellular data. I see I'm 90th in line with an 80 minute estimated wait time. Hoping this is temporary and not them getting shut down by AT&T for some reason.
Mine has been a little bit slower than normal today, but still working. I did have a problem a couple months ago and was told my SIM card went bad. I was told to go buy an AT&T prepaid SIM card for $10. Haven't had any problems since.
Our service hasn't gone out just yet but the past two days the signal hasn't been as strong.
I'll find out when I get home later this afternoon if it's not working completely
I'll find out when I get home later this afternoon if it's not working completely
Not everyone gets the same version of me. One person might tell you I have an amazing beautiful soul. Another might tell you I’m a cold-hearted a$$^ole. Believe them both. I don’t treat people badly. I treat them accordingly - unknown
My account just needed to be refreshed. Supposedly AT&T is upgrading their towers so this affected a lot of customers. Appears to be working now, but will check speeds when I get home.
I wanted to check back in and pass along some information if there were others watching this thread like I had been over the past few months.
We started with a service called UbiFi and so far the results have been respectable and meet our needs for rural internet (basic internet usage, Netflix type streaming, etc). You can check the company website for more information, but I purchased their Mofi device and added a Wilson Yagi directional antenna. My wife and I just moved into a new house we recently finished building in rural east TX. We are about 3.5 miles from the nearest cell tower. With the UbiFi equipment we generally get a ping in the 30-35 ms range and are averaging download speeds in the 12-20 Mbps range and uploads in the 8-12 Mbps range. This is with the antenna inside the attic and the Mofi device in a media closet in the center of the house. When I first got the equipment and had the Mofi on the kitchen counter and the antenna sitting on the back porch (facing towards the tower) I was getting 25-32 Mbps download speeds. Once we get settled, I'll look at changing antenna locations to maximize speeds.
We have only been on this service for about three weeks, but so far it has worked pretty well. Our son was in from A&M over Christmas and he said he played online games for several hours each evening with only one issue for about an hour one evening. My wife works from home often and hasn't noticed any disruptions to date.
Again, this is a small sample size in terms of time, but I'm optimistic that it will work for us. The setup was pretty much plug and play, which with all the house construction going on at the time, was a welcome relief. If anyone has questions, I'm happy to try and answer.
We started with a service called UbiFi and so far the results have been respectable and meet our needs for rural internet (basic internet usage, Netflix type streaming, etc). You can check the company website for more information, but I purchased their Mofi device and added a Wilson Yagi directional antenna. My wife and I just moved into a new house we recently finished building in rural east TX. We are about 3.5 miles from the nearest cell tower. With the UbiFi equipment we generally get a ping in the 30-35 ms range and are averaging download speeds in the 12-20 Mbps range and uploads in the 8-12 Mbps range. This is with the antenna inside the attic and the Mofi device in a media closet in the center of the house. When I first got the equipment and had the Mofi on the kitchen counter and the antenna sitting on the back porch (facing towards the tower) I was getting 25-32 Mbps download speeds. Once we get settled, I'll look at changing antenna locations to maximize speeds.
We have only been on this service for about three weeks, but so far it has worked pretty well. Our son was in from A&M over Christmas and he said he played online games for several hours each evening with only one issue for about an hour one evening. My wife works from home often and hasn't noticed any disruptions to date.
Again, this is a small sample size in terms of time, but I'm optimistic that it will work for us. The setup was pretty much plug and play, which with all the house construction going on at the time, was a welcome relief. If anyone has questions, I'm happy to try and answer.
Do you just have one yagi antenna on that setup? If so you would need two to get the full MIMO signal. You will also need to position the 2 antennas in 90 degree polarization.
Also, it looks like Ubifi runs on AT&T towers.
Also, it looks like Ubifi runs on AT&T towers.
Do you have to get OTR mobile's SIM card, or can you go get an AT&T prepaid SIM and have OTR activate it?
I just got an OTR sim card seem to be easier than trying to find a sim card. To be honest I didn't try very hard
Not everyone gets the same version of me. One person might tell you I have an amazing beautiful soul. Another might tell you I’m a cold-hearted a$$^ole. Believe them both. I don’t treat people badly. I treat them accordingly - unknown
I believe you need to have their sim card, but you can ask on the chat on their page. It's normally pretty quick unless they are having issues.country said:
Do you have to get OTR mobile's SIM card, or can you go get an AT&T prepaid SIM and have OTR activate it?
You can get an AT&T Prepaid SIM card and use that. When my OTR SIM went bad, they told me if I didn't want to wait for a replacement to come in the mail I could go buy an AT&T Prepaid SIM and they could activate that. I did that and have had zero problems with it.
Thanks for the feedback. Based upon this thread I got the enterprise level cradlepoint and have now signed up with OTR. Hoping it is pretty much plug and play. My parents' house is only 1/2 mile from the nearest AT&T tower and they have direct line of site down about a 2 mile wide valley. They have excellent cell phone coverage with AT&T. If OTR really does give unthrottled unlimited data (which I have no reason to think they don't based upon this thread) then I think my parents are going to be in business big time.
Yes, we only have the one antenna (Wilson Antenna) and yes they use an AT&T sim card that is already installed and ready to go. I basically plugged the router in, connected to my laptop, and went thru a quick setup where I named my new wireless network and set a password for it. For my technological limitations, it was a dream setup!
I'll look into the MIMO after we get settled in and unpacked since I'm not familiar with how that works.
I'll look into the MIMO after we get settled in and unpacked since I'm not familiar with how that works.
With only one antenna they are probably getting much slower speeds than they would with two, depending on the tower. It's super easy to do. Just make them look like that picture above. There's an arrow on the back of the antenna that shows you the polarization direction. The 2 antennas just need those at 90 degree angles from each other.
I wanted to circle back and give my experience for anyone else since I found this thread so useful and informative.
I purchased a one month unlimited account through OTR. I purchased the cradlepoint cba850. I have played with this stuff a little before and took the comments about the ease of use for the $$$ vs rigging up a cheaper option to heart. When my SIM card arrived, I went to OTR's website and started a chat. They submitted the activation for the SIM and within about 45 minutes it was activated. I put the SIM card into the cradlepoint and attached a cable to my computer. Took about 5 minutes for everything to settle in. I was not receiving internet to the computer despite all the LEDs of the modem indicating I had one. I logged into cradlepoint's cloud service and it could see the modem, but it said it was Pending. I then logged into the cradlepoint through the IP address. Once I did it said everything was good but that it did not have a license. About 2 minutes later that changed and it showed to have a license. The cloud service page also showed that the unit was no longer Pending and was active.
I checked internet connectivity to the computer and everything was good. I checked internet speed and was blown away at receiving 72 mbps down and 22 mbps up. Once I knew everything was working, I ran from the cradlepoint to a Ubiquiti UniFi gateway. I ran from that to a UniFi Switch, and I ran from the switch to the computer hardwired. Also ran out of the switch to a UniFi access point. Boom. 70-75 mbps throughout the house down and 20-25 mbps throughout the house up. Going to let my parents use it heavily over the next couple of weeks. If everything goes well with data, I will be buying an annual subscription through OTR.
For reference, my parents house is not but about half a mile from an AT&T tower and it is direct line of site except for mesquite trees. The cradlepoint is sitting on their computer desk inside the house near a window. Could probably get faster if I wanted to go through the trouble, but why bother at the speeds I'm getting right?
Big time thanks to all of you on this thread. This is what I've needed forever for my parents. I am extremely fortunate in that I live 5 miles down the road and was able to tie into a fiber line when a company was bringing a line to the small town we live in so I've been on fast internet for a while. The parents are thrilled now.
I purchased a one month unlimited account through OTR. I purchased the cradlepoint cba850. I have played with this stuff a little before and took the comments about the ease of use for the $$$ vs rigging up a cheaper option to heart. When my SIM card arrived, I went to OTR's website and started a chat. They submitted the activation for the SIM and within about 45 minutes it was activated. I put the SIM card into the cradlepoint and attached a cable to my computer. Took about 5 minutes for everything to settle in. I was not receiving internet to the computer despite all the LEDs of the modem indicating I had one. I logged into cradlepoint's cloud service and it could see the modem, but it said it was Pending. I then logged into the cradlepoint through the IP address. Once I did it said everything was good but that it did not have a license. About 2 minutes later that changed and it showed to have a license. The cloud service page also showed that the unit was no longer Pending and was active.
I checked internet connectivity to the computer and everything was good. I checked internet speed and was blown away at receiving 72 mbps down and 22 mbps up. Once I knew everything was working, I ran from the cradlepoint to a Ubiquiti UniFi gateway. I ran from that to a UniFi Switch, and I ran from the switch to the computer hardwired. Also ran out of the switch to a UniFi access point. Boom. 70-75 mbps throughout the house down and 20-25 mbps throughout the house up. Going to let my parents use it heavily over the next couple of weeks. If everything goes well with data, I will be buying an annual subscription through OTR.
For reference, my parents house is not but about half a mile from an AT&T tower and it is direct line of site except for mesquite trees. The cradlepoint is sitting on their computer desk inside the house near a window. Could probably get faster if I wanted to go through the trouble, but why bother at the speeds I'm getting right?
Big time thanks to all of you on this thread. This is what I've needed forever for my parents. I am extremely fortunate in that I live 5 miles down the road and was able to tie into a fiber line when a company was bringing a line to the small town we live in so I've been on fast internet for a while. The parents are thrilled now.
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