Mobile Internet

[JimboT]

Forgive me for not knowing the intricacies, as I am just learning about mobile data and comms, but I install these in police vehicles on a daily basis:

MG90

The AirLink MG90 and MG90 5G are high-performance vehicle routers, purpose-built to provide secure, always-on connectivity. The MG90 LTE-A Pro is FirstNet ready with Band 14 support. Learn more today!

www.sierrawireless.com

They seem feature-packed and are vehicle-ready, and the antennas are compact. I could not tell you about the network setup or services unfortunately, but I can say I’ve installed these in rural Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana sheriff and emergency response vehicles that I’d imagine need connectivity in remote areas.

For what it’s worth.

Interesting idea. I will take a look.

 

[JimboT]

You selling on amazon?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No just a boring executive who has to provide guidance, encouragement and direction, a couple of times a day.

 

[Momodolo]

No just a boring executive who has to provide guidance, encouragement and direction, a couple of times a day.

Ahhh, Id love to be a boring executive soon!!


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[jhmoore]

This is how I've been doing it for over decade now, patiently awaiting SpaceX Starlink to untether me from civilization..

From a non-technical perspective (there are clearly some very knowledgeable folks in this thread), I am viewing Starlink as a possible solution to all of this in a couple years... which is great for those of us trying to work remotely... but pretty sucky for making noplace in the world out of comms anymore... and I'm really really really pissed about how they are destroying the night sky. So a two-edged sword, as many things are.

 

[dreadlocks]

No place in the world has been out of comms reach for a very long time, Sat Phones and HF Ham have been around for a very long time. If you want to go silent, devices still have power buttons you can turn them off.

I'm meh on the "destroying the night's sky" nonsense, and I'm a huge astronomy buff. Its just a bunch of Luddite nonsense, imagine how many more scientists and astrophysicists we will create when those poor kids growing up in BFE like I did have access to decent internet. Think of all the dying little villages with decades of diaspora because people have to move to places with good connectivity to get good jobs like I did 15y ago..

Launch prices are falling enough that we'll soon be building radio telescopes on the dark side of the moon that don't have any pollution from earth interfering with em, and tons more optical telescopes we can throw up into the solar system.. Needa start building up the deep space network because with SpaceX cutting the launch costs down so much things are gonna be getting very, very interesting.

Everyone forgets that Starlink satellites will all de-orbit in a relatively quick manner, this is not a permanent space junk fear. As the technology improves and newer less reflective satellites join the network the performance characteristics can improve.. its not like we're gonna be stuck looking at these bright ass 1st Gen Starlink moons for hundreds of years.

 

[jhmoore]

its not like we're gonna be stuck looking at these bright ass 1st Gen Starlink moons for hundreds of years.

But we are stuck looking at them now...

 

[jhmoore]

And I should add that it sounds like they've been fairly responsive already in figuring out how to minimize the glare already, so that's good, but... how much can they minimize and when do we get rid of the earlier, brighter models?

 

[dreadlocks]

3-4 years is the maximum time they can keep em up before they run out of fuel and gotta de-orbit, they are low enough altitude there's plenty of drag that would be the max time if the box just went dumb w/no control. they can always send them down early if they are ready to be replaced, I suspect most of these 1st gen test units won't be up for very long.

I think they look cool, I've been spotting satellites and space stations and other manmade objects up in the sky at night since I was a kid. the number of people adversely impacted directly is still minuscule, If you gathered up every amateur astronomer on the planet, and all the professionals as well, you would struggle to fill a Vegas Convention center.. they would be vastly outnumbered by those whom will benefit from global broadband.

Go check out an iridium flare, or the ISS flyover, they are pretty cool to observe.

 

[jhmoore]

I think they look cool, I've been spotting satellites and space stations and other manmade objects up in the sky at night since I was a kid. the number of people adversely impacted directly is still minuscule, If you gathered up every amateur astronomer on the planet, and all the professionals as well, you would struggle to fill a Vegas Convention center.. they would be vastly outnumbered by those whom will benefit from global broadband.

Go check out an iridium flare, or the ISS flyover, they are pretty cool to observe.

We don't need to clog up this thread with disagreements over aesthetics (though for astronomers it's not just aesthetic), but I disagree... both as a photographer and as a human... how peaceful will you feel sitting someplace way out in the middle of nowhere, laying on your back in a field, enjoying being far from people and the dark, dark sky... watching the stars, watching for shooting stars, gazing at the Milky Way... while thousands of bright objects whizz by in formation?

At the same time, that utter lack of peace will solve a technical problem we'll all on here trying to solve...

 

[dreadlocks]

derail away, you are greatly overestimating the visibility of these.. If your watching shooting stars, gazing at the milky way, you will not see any satellites because they will be in the eclipse of the earth, they do not create light, only reflect it.. so satellites only flare-up to those bright pictures you've seen at dusk/dawn when the sun has already set for you but not on them. And they will track across the sky at speeds relative to those of shooting stars, so worst case you see a train of a few go halfway across the sky and suddenly vanish for a small window every night if you go out for it. Unless you have some extremely robust photon gathering capabilities w/that camera of yours its nothing, the existing satellites are up there.. let's go look for em: https://findstarlink.com/

For me here in Denver, they are visible 5mins a day for the next few days.. If this is such an incredible inconvenience to you as a human, and you're willing to deprive the poor and underprivileged with vital technology, either your priorities are wrong or you cant apply critical thinking to normal media clickbait.

 

[MTVR]

I'm not tech-savvy, so we were just planning to do a $500 We-Boost to get internet where we can.

 

[JimboT]

I'm not tech-savvy, so we were just planning to do a $500 We-Boost to get internet where we can.

Check out CEL-FI

 

[particulardude]

Great information shared here - thank you all!

I'm not going off grid (yet) but looking at solutions for strong service in my vehicle to power wifi cameras along with the usual interweb needs

 

[BrittanyHighland]

No need to reinvent the wheel. There is a whole community of location-indepedent, working-age RVers who have been working on this problem for many years. First, check out Mobile Internet for RVers and Cruisers (I'm not affiliated, though the owners are my friends). They are *the* go-to source on this topic in the United States. Always testing the newest devices and trying out the latest plans.

But here's the TL;DR. No one uses satellite. Everyone is using a data plan from one of the major carriers. (Verizon is the best in my experience, but expensive. AT&T works almost everywhere, but can also be expensive. T-Mobile seems to have greatly improved its coverage, and tends to be cheaper than the other two. Sprint is terrible.) Then you can get a booster for greater reliability.

The best setup we've had is a Verizon hotspot, with the two ports that connect to a MIMO antenna. A MIMO is only $30 on Amazon, while a WeBoost will set you back hundreds of dollars. The key is getting the right hotspot because there's only one Verizon option that can connect to the MIMO.

Google Fi and Skyroam are options for outside the U.S. Scott Brady says he loves Google Fi, but not in the U.S. Our major carriers are superior here.

We've been traveling full-time in the USA and Mexico for the past seven years, working full-time.

 

[greg.potter]

Well it looks like Starlink is here in western Canada. I just got my beta invitation for a fixed location installation and I know of about another half dozen people in our community that have as well. The first invitations came out in early December and people started receiving their installation packages before Christmas. The initial reports are very encouraging but nowhere near the initial projections / Starlink marketing propaganda. People are reporting data rates in the 50-150 Mbps range with latency of 20-40 mSec. The satellite array is still not complete and there are changes being made to the system on an ongoing basis so there are short service losses 4-5 times a day. That being said it is still the best thing we have in the Rocky Mountain foothills of Alberta!

I haven't heard of any mobile units being deployed as of yet. I imagine they will hold off on that until they are successful with fixed location installations.