Pepwave Cellular Internet Equipment Installation

["EZ"]

I have a MoFi 4500 SIM 7 Combo. Bought it here (MOFI4500-4GXeLTE-SIM7_COMBO [MOFI4500-4GXeLTE-SIM7_COMBO] - $284.99) came with everything needed.

popped in the Sim. Basic setup. Decent internet before I tweaked anything.

Thanks for this info Mapnerd. This looks very affordable! What are the draw backs to a system like this vs. the Pepwave route? Is the internet reliable or iffy at times? I'm going to need it to be pretty solid for my wife to be able to work on it for her job.

 

[MapNerd]

Thanks for this info Mapnerd. This looks very affordable! What are the draw backs to a system like this vs. the Pepwave route? Is the internet reliable or iffy at times? I'm going to need it to be pretty solid for my wife to be able to work on it for her job.

There are a couple of drawbacks, principally:

• Like any cell modem it’s only as good as your cell provider’s coverage in the area you are located. This is not unique to the MoFi though. Any cell modem is going to have this limitation.
• The SIM7 model which I have does not support LTE-A also called Carrier Aggregation where all of the available and usable band signals can be aggregated to get a faster speed. Instead, it’s speed relies on you making some adjustments with every trip when you arrive at your destination. You scan for available bands, then lock onto each band, perform a speed test or two (I do three and then average the results for each band), then move on to the next. Once you’ve done this for each, you go back and lock back into whatever band have you the fastest speed test result. It sounds complicated but it’s not and it takes no more than 30-minutes to do, but some folks don’t want to be bothered with that. The SIM4 model does have that feature though!
• Its not a CAT-18 modem so you won’t get those 60mbps speeds @VTPete was seeing from his Pepwave MaxTransit Duo.
• I don’t think it supports 4x4 MIMO but I might be wrong about that.
  

Ultimately, it works for my needs just fine though. We’re full time and I do Zoom Calls all day without issue, emails, web browsing, coding, source code management, all of it. At night, we use it to stream. 90% of the time, we can stream HD without issue. The other 10% of the time, we just have bad coverage and we need to move or make adjustments but that’s not something I can fault the device for.

I don’t have external antennas. I just have it 3M’d to the inside of my windshield below the tint line. Gets power from the OHC above the driver. If I added external antennas, I might get better speeds but the paddle antennas it comes with have served me fine. I regularly pull 30mbps down and 15 mbps up - enough for all four of us to stream at standard definition simultaneously on separate devices or for two devices to stream HD simultaneously.

if your wife is doing really massive uploads and downloads though, for example if she were a graphic artist or video editor, I could see springing for the MaxTransit Duo to get those super speeds. Also, the MaxTransit Duo device is a little more future proof. The MoFi will begin showing its age here in a year or two, especially with Starlink and 5G.

 

["EZ"]

There are a couple of drawbacks, principally:

• Like any cell modem it’s only as good as your cell provider’s coverage in the area you are located. This is not unique to the MoFi though. Any cell modem is going to have this limitation.
• The SIM7 model which I have does not support LTE-A also called Carrier Aggregation where all of the available and usable band signals can be aggregated to get a faster speed. Instead, it’s speed relies on you making some adjustments with every trip when you arrive at your destination. You scan for available bands, then lock onto each band, perform a speed test or two (I do three and then average the results for each band), then move on to the next. Once you’ve done this for each, you go back and lock back into whatever band have you the fastest speed test result. It sounds complicated but it’s not and it takes no more than 30-minutes to do, but some folks don’t want to be bothered with that. The SIM4 model does have that feature though!
• Its not a CAT-18 modem so you won’t get those 60mbps speeds @VTPete was seeing from his Pepwave MaxTransit Duo.
• I don’t think it supports 4x4 MIMO but I might be wrong about that.

Ultimately, it works for my needs just fine though. We’re full time and I do Zoom Calls all day without issue, emails, web browsing, coding, source code management, all of it. At night, we use it to stream. 90% of the time, we can stream HD without issue. The other 10% of the time, we just have bad coverage and we need to move or make adjustments but that’s not something I can fault the device for.

I don’t have external antennas. I just have it 3M’d to the inside of my windshield below the tint line. Gets power from the OHC above the driver. If I added external antennas, I might get better speeds but the paddle antennas it comes with have served me fine. I regularly pull 30mbps down and 15 mbps up - enough for all four of us to stream at standard definition simultaneously on separate devices or for two devices to stream HD simultaneously.

if your wife is doing really massive uploads and downloads though, for example if she were a graphic artist or video editor, I could see springing for the MaxTransit Duo to get those super speeds. Also, the MaxTransit Duo device is a little more future proof. The MoFi will begin showing its age here in a year or two, especially with Starlink and 5G.

Wow! Thanks Mapnerd. That was a good write up. And I think I understood most of it too.

 

[Neal]

Its not a CAT-18 modem so you won’t get those 60mbps speeds @VTPete was seeing from his Pepwave MaxTransit Duo.

I get upwards of 100 down with my CAT 6 Pepwave. I'm moving to CAT 18 but speed is not the reason. Speeds have been great in my current setup.

 

[Deshira]

After I figure out what all I need to order to get my wife reliable internet in the RV, is there some place that I can get this stuff installed? I really don't want to try to figure it out myself. It'll take forever and would be much better for me to pay someone that was experienced to install everything. Would a local stereo shop know how to do this stuff? Or would an RV dealer be better? Where would you go?

Hello
Please can you share what did you find reliable for the internet on the RV? I am trying everything and nothing works. Thank you.

 

[Neal]

Here is one from @ARD at Polson, CAT 6 all paddle antennas.

Polson, Montana

Cellular device used: Pepwave MAX BR1 MK2 Cellular network(s): AT&T and Verizon Cellular plan (smartphone or hotspot, postpaid or prepaid): AT&T postpaid, Verizon prepaid Location and Time of Day: Polson Motorcoach Resort, Montana @ 7am MDT Speed test results: AT&T: 77.7 Download/17.4 Upload...

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