Cellular struggles, a day in the life of mobile Internet

[Neal]

You can choose your bands but you’d need to know which ones. I tried it once and it didn’t work well. Back to auto.

 

[Kcmusa]

Picking up the pepwave max transit cat 12. Got the AA&T sim but it was a runaround with Different stores to get the 100gig plan. Looking forward to trying the visible sim it it. Have the att sim In the iPad now.

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[tetranz]

I guess it's a bit late to learn this after running around several stores but you should be able to buy the AT&T 100 GB for $55 online using this form AT&T Prepaid Activation Portal
You just need an unused AT&T prepaid SIM starting with 89 which you can get from Amazon or many other places such as Walmart, Best Buy etc.

It depends if the form recognizes your IMEI. It didn't recognize my Pepwave MAX BR1 MK2 when I got the plan just over a month ago so I had to go to a store but they seem to have improved the database of IMEIs since then because it does recognize it now.

 

[Kcmusa]

The first store I went to said they could not find a 100gig $55 plan. Tried to sell me the 40gig $85 plan. Called att. Got 3 transfers, nothing. Hit another att store, bingo. Sad it took all that to get the plan on their site

 

[Neal]

Cellular stores are ALWAYS a hassle. Not sure if this is their intention or simply the fact that the big cell companies don't keep these independent providers in the know. You can walk into a store, as I did, and ask for a plan they don't even know they have. I had to use their computer and find it for them, then after pulling teeth I walked out with a SIM regardless if my IMEI is recognized or not, it wasn't.

 

[tetranz]

For all their faults, at least AT&T list the 100 GB for $55 plan clearly on their website and you have a reasonable chance of getting it online if you know how. T-Mobile have a similarly priced on again / off again postpaid plan (it's on again now) but it's not listed anywhere. I don't understand why they make it so complicated. I guess it's to force you to engage in a conversation which gives them an opportunity to sell you a new phone or something. I think the T-Mobile plan is still "limited time only" but the AT&T plan seems to be here to stay.

I've had plenty of frustrations with AT&T but I'm pretty happy with this. I like the fact that it's prepaid so I can just let it go when I'm not using the RV and sign up again online when we go on a trip. I haven't yet actually been through the process of letting it go and signing up again but it looks like that will be easy. If it's within 60 days I simply need to pay online to refill the same SIM. Beyond that it needs reactivating with a new SIM and probably an activation fee.

Of course 100 GB is still not enough . I'm hoping that Verizon will come out of nowhere and surprise everyone with something like 200 GB for $55 and beat them both but unfortunately that seems unlikely.

 

[Kcmusa]

I got “that plan is not available in your area” to “the plan is not compatible with your device”

 

[Neal]

I got “that plan is not available in your area” to “the plan is not compatible with your device”

Which means they want to sell you something else that they make money off of and by the way you'll need this device with it. It's a fight, a fight to tell them clearly what you want and it is available. I had to call AT&T tech support or whomever to tell the store what to do. Then they found the plan, gave me the sim, etc. 3rd time I've had to do this (Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T).

 

[tetranz]

The guy in the local store was pretty good when I bought the AT&T 100 GB plan. He knew exactly what I wanted and recorded the IMEI from a screenshot of the Pepwave admin page. The whole thing took about ten minutes and I walked out with a SIM.

Unfortunately his co-worker had no clue what I was talking about when I returned a week later trying to explain that I wanted to set a PIN or password on the prepaid account so I could access it online for monitoring usage, pay to refill or potentially change the plan. You normally get that PIN by receiving an SMS message on the device. I'm not sure why but my Pepwave MAX BR1 MK2 doesn't seem to receive text messages into the SMS toolbox. I thought he'd be able to set it but no "PINs are only for phones". He tried to set my email address on the account but the confirmation message never arrived.

A couple of weeks later I temporarily put the SIM in a phone and, somewhat to my surprise, it worked. I received the text from AT&T and now I have online access to the account. The email address on the account was set to [email protected] I have no idea where that came from. The password requirements are weird. It must start with a capital letter and the only "special" characters allowed are dash and underscore. That makes no sense from a technical or security point of view. The nice strong password generated by my password manager was failing.

 

[Kcmusa]

Ok a review of the pepwave max transit cat 12 modem. I have had it a few days, put in an ATT sim and a visible sim. Both work as expected. I connected it to the home WiFi to test WiFi as wan. WiFi as wan is not working as expected, continues to disconnect with any test I set. Also the modem has rebooted itself a few times. I am wondering if I should have purchased the cat 18, maybe it’s more robust. I held off because it’s pending certification on some networks.
what I like so far, can run off 5 volt USB ( 2, 2amp lines required) 12 volt from the RV. The automatic switching from one source to another, the 2 sim slots.
i was in the IT field and worked mostly with Cisco devices. this Is a good device, but a need to figure out why it reboots itself And why it won’t hold the home WiFi connection.

 

[Neal]

Try the 120V power and see if the reboots go away. Is WiFi using the defaults or were any changes made in the settings area? You may want to try a device reset and start over. Be sure to go to System (top) and Firmware (left) and check for updates. If all else fails, contact the company you bought it from and open a support case.

 

[Joe Dutchstar]

The first store I went to said they could not find a 100gig $55 plan. Tried to sell me the 40gig $85 plan. Called att. Got 3 transfers, nothing. Hit another att store, bingo. Sad it took all that to get the plan on their site

This has been my experience with ATT on multiple occasions. Never was able to get the SIM I purchased from ATT to be activated.

 

["EZ"]

I finally had the time to go buy the sim cards for the new Pepwave Max Transit 5G Cat 20 router that I recently bought from the 5G Store.

AT&T: "What's a Pepwave?"
Me: I want the 100G plan for $55/mo
AT&T: Can I have your drivers liscense please? After 20 minutes my text chimes and Life Lock is alerting me that someone is using my SS# to set up a new account and this guy can't even tell me if he has a 100G plan for $55/mo. But he has to check all his boxes and go through the procedure or he can't function so I stood patiently while he did his thing.
Me: Did you find it yet?
AT&T: Let me check with my Manager.
Manager: What's a Pepwave??
AT&T: This is a pre-paid account so if it doesn't work we can't give your money back. You need to buy the business plan for 40G at $85/mo.
Me: Just sell me the Sim card. I know it'll work. Neal said it would work. (After an hour I finally got what I came for.)

T-Mobile: Sure thing! I know what a Pepwave is.
Me: Great!
T-Mobile: Here's your Sim card. You can pay on-line or by downloading our app. Thank you for your business!
Me: Thanks! (15 minutes tops.)

 

[Neal]

Dang, you're making me wait for the sequel - "did it work". I'm riveted to the channel, when will it air??

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

Dang, you're making me wait for the sequel - "did it work". I'm riveted to the channel, when will it air??

Waiting here for the “to be continued…”

I want to be able to say like Paul Harvey would say, “now you know the rest of the story”.

Been on the fence for months, do I wait for Starlink or get the Pepwave… hearing more stories of success with Pepwave is making me lean more that direction, knowing that Musk is always optimistic is his timelines.