MOFI4500 / T-Mobile VS. Verizon Confusion. Fast Vs. Slow

[Lamengamin]

Hello. I am new to the site. I have "Googled" several questions and it has pointed to this site on several occasions. Let me say in advance, "Thanks for be here!!!"

I am completely confused. I have read several posts and have managed to get myself lost in the weeds pretty good.

I recently moved out to the country. T-Mobile service is available there, so I was not concerned after doing some research before moving.

We bought the MOFI4500 SIM4 and got an $80/month unlimited plan from OTR Mobile which uses T-Mobile sim cards. I set it up before we moved and speeds were great (with stock panel antennas) in a well populated city.

Once we moved to the new house, I set it up and the speed are around 1-3 Mbps down on good days. We've had it as low as .6 Mbps on several occasions.

My signal strength was showing poor, I believe at -114. I replaced antennas with a parabolic wide band antenna and LMR 400 cables (after watching a guy on YouTube) and it made no difference, so I sent it back. I replaced the antenna with a Proxicast 4G / LTE MIMO Panel antenna. Now my signal strength is anywhere form -107 to -99 and shows "Fair" in router configuration app. My speeds are still around 2-4 Mbps, but occasionally I can get up to 7 or 8.

I saw videos, before I bought this setup, where people with 1 bar on there cell phone were getting 45-50 Mbps down. I thought I was golden because we have 2 bars on our phones at the house. We are NOT golden, LOL.

Because of the spotty T-Mobile service in our area, we switched to Verizon as our mobile phone carrier. On a hunch, I took the sim card out of my Verizon iPad and put it in the MOFI. The router configuration app showed signal strength of "Poor." I can't remember the exact number, but it was only 2 bars where the T-Mobile card showed 3 bars. The signal strength number was better than with the T-Mobile card though. I think it was something like -98. However, the internet was waaaaaay faster. I was getting 35-40 Mbps down with the Verizon card. I thought my problem was solved. That was until I hit my "unlimited" data cap and got throttled down to .6 Mbps.

I don't know what to do now. If I could get 20-25 Mbps I'd be happy. If I could get more that would be great. Any ideas?

[Yipzy]

I was getting 35-40 Mbps down with the Verizon card. I thought my problem was solved. That was until I hit my "unlimited" data cap and got throttled down to .6 Mbps.

I don't know what to do now. If I could get 20-25 Mbps I'd be happy. If I could get more that would be great. Any ideas?

What plan are you on? It sounds like you've hit the hotspot data limit. If so, there is a TTL setting for Mofi that you could change to bypass detection. You want to change it to TTL 65,66, or 67 or even 117 to test if speed will improve after each restart. Basically you want to ping from your connected pc to the Mofi's router ip 192.168.10.1 to get TTL reply of 65 and not 64. You also need to set the ip6tables for ipv6 since I believe Mofi only has it for ipv4. Do some research to apply the firewall rule as I don't have a Mofi.

[Lamengamin]

I went back to my T-Mobile card because my Verizon data limit before throttling was reached. I have unlimited on both cards, but apparently the T-mobile card from OTR mobile doesn't get throttled. So, You're saying to put the Verizon card back in and change the TTL as stated above? I will research what you suggested as well. Thank you so much.

[Yipzy]

The 600Kbps is usually a sign that your data is being detected as hotspot data. If you put your Verizon's sim back into the phone and it doesn't throttle to 600Kbps then you know it is caused by hotspot detection.

[Didneywhorl]

I went back to my T-Mobile card because my Verizon data limit before throttling was reached. I have unlimited on both cards, but apparently the T-mobile card from OTR mobile doesn't get throttled. So, You're saying to put the Verizon card back in and change the TTL as stated above? I will research what you suggested as well. Thank you so much.

Yes.

The unlimited is on phone only, not hotspot. The cell carriers detect useage in different ways. In some cases ipv4 ttl or ipv6 hl (like ttl, but actually called hl) is a main way they detect it. In these cases using a routing/nat table command called mangle to modify the ttl/hl values (usually around 65 or around 117) to a certain number can trick the detection into thinking your using on phone data.

[Time-Pilot]

Which band are you connecting to with T-Mobile? For me Band 4 & Band 66 have been the fastest on Tmobile.

Also, which modem comes with the Mofi Sim4?
Does it support carrier aggregation?

[Lamengamin]

Yes.

The unlimited is on phone only, not hotspot. The cell carriers detect useage in different ways. In some cases ipv4 ttl or ipv6 hl (like ttl, but actually called hl) is a main way they detect it. In these cases using a routing/nat table command called mangle to modify the ttl/hl values (usually around 65 or around 117) to a certain number can trick the detection into thinking your using on phone data.

The sim card is from an iPad which has unlimited data. I wasn't using the tablet as a hotspot. Are you saying that by using the card in the MOFI showed to Verizon as hotspot usage and that's why it was throttled?

[Lamengamin]

Which band are you connecting to with T-Mobile? For me Band 4 & Band 66 have been the fastest on Tmobile.

Also, which modem comes with the Mofi Sim4?
Does it support carrier aggregation?

I don't believe I have 66 on Sim4. I connect via 12. I have carrier aggregation capability, but it always shows as "Not Assigned" no matter what I do.

[Lamengamin]

I have no clue why the above image won't show. Here is the link to the image.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jFhiL2bWKcpoRDFD6

[gscheb]

Yes.
The unlimited is on phone only, not hotspot. The cell carriers detect useage in different ways. In some cases ipv4 ttl or ipv6 hl (like ttl, but actually called hl) is a main way they detect it. In these cases using a routing/nat table command called mangle to modify the ttl/hl values (usually around 65 or around 117) to a certain number can trick the detection into thinking your using on phone data.

Here is a video on how to change the TTL on a Mofi. So you can try to get your verizon ipad sim to work again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7H5vLWb68o

[Lamengamin]

Here is a video on how to change the TTL on a Mofi. So you can try to get your verizon ipad sim to work again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7H5vLWb68o

So, I watched the video and my MOFI is already set to Linux-2 65. It was set like that out of the box. However when I ping the router via cmd the results say TTL=64. Am I mixing apples and oranges?

[gscheb]

Well I don't know what your TTL Should be for that tablet plan. Just sent video for you to see where to change it. Try a few settings and see if one let's you get your speeds back. Let us know. My Verizon phone is TTL 117. T-Mobile phone sim TTL is 64.

[Lamengamin]

Well I don't know what your TTL Should be for that tablet plan. Just sent video for you to see where to change it. Try a few settings and see if one let's you get your speeds back. Let us know. My Verizon phone is TTL 117. T-Mobile phone sim TTL is 64.

I got that. What I'm asking is if the TTL in the router config says Linux-2 65, when I ping the router the TTL should equal 65 not 64 like my ping result is showing, or am I mixing up two different things?

[gscheb]

I got that. What I'm asking is if the TTL in the router config says Linux-2 65, when I ping the router the TTL should equal 65 not 64 like my ping result is showing, or am I mixing up two different things?

Not sure, have never pinged a router for TTL. Just always knew what the TTL was needed and set it. Did you try a TTL of 64 then or a TTL 117? Did you find one that lets you get the original speed back?

[Yipzy]

Not necessarily. It has to do with how many devices you're behind. You just need to increase it to 66 or make custom firewall rules to do so if there isn't an option like GoldenOrb. I set mine to 67 before I could get my end user pc to ping router to get a TTL reply of 65. A TTL reply of 65 is known to work for Verizon or TTL of 117.

[Lamengamin]

I noticed that when I pinged the router the result was always 1 less than the TTL set in the router app. So the router's TTL setting of 65 pinged 64 and setting TTL to 117 pinged 116. I set the custom TTL to 118 and it pinged 117 since I read a few times that 117 worked for Verizon. I'm back up to 30 Mbps down during mid-day. That's up from the 3-5 Mbps that I was getting on T-mobile just before swapping sim cards. I'm going to try setting custom TTL to 66 and pinging 65 to see if there is any increase in speed. I just hope it continues to work. I'll let you know. Thanks for all the info.

[gscheb]

Great got it working!

TTL won't increase speed. Just gets you passed being throttled. Next question is your antenna set up. You said this antenna was pointed at a T-Mobile tower in a post.
So does that mean your antenna could be changed towards a Verizon tower? If so could see even faster speeds once signal is increased.

[RockyinNM]

I have no clue why the above image won't show. Here is the link to the image.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jFhiL2bWKcpoRDFD6

Did you get this resolved, if not let me know-
Rocky

[Lamengamin]

Great got it working!

TTL won't increase speed. Just gets you passed being throttled. Next question is your antenna set up. You said this antenna was pointed at a T-Mobile tower in a post.
So does that mean your antenna could be changed towards a Verizon tower? If so could see even faster speeds once signal is increased.

Im going to walk around to see if there is a better location for the antenna now. Thanks.

[Lamengamin]

Did you get this resolved, if not let me know-
Rocky

It works via the link. Photo won't show in post.

[Dr-BroadBand]

It’s getting harder to a 4G modem/hotspot onto a carriers network with the Cell Phone or iPad SIM trick.

Sadly they are onto that game. I have setup a MoFi 4500 SIM7 with T-Mobile but used an after market MVNO the SIM/plan that cost a $100 month for 900Gig of data. ~20Mbps DL ~10Mps (Very rural area, wooded swap)

I hope you can get the iPad SIM trick to work!! If you do please share the information.
You can play with the TTL setting ,,ipv4 ,,,ipv6……… Good luck

I have more bad news for you, I also had OTR but they are dropping T-Mobile.
And may only hope is T-Mobile band 71 600MHz (The MoFi 4500 SIM7 Has Band 71)

It would be best to get a baseline of the MoFi working at it’s best.

I would order a car power adaptor for the MoFi and bring the unit to the Cell tower of your dreams.
Do a band scan, and a speed test, run the speed test three times and get an average.
Take good notes, would like to see

What day, and time of day of speed test.

What is the
RSRP dBm (Reference Signal Received Power)
RSRQ dB (Reference Signal Received Quality)
SINR dB (Signal to Interference &Noise Ratio)

I am getting a NEW SIM from a New MVNO (No Limit Data)
https://www.nolimitdata.net

All MVNO are a little sketchy use caution ......

And "BARs" are for cold beer, use dB

A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZY ... UTF8&psc=1

[Dr-BroadBand]

Had the same thing happen to me!!

There is a long story but here is the short one.
It’s NOT your SIM or Modem the problem is with the Cell Tower.

Trust but verify what I am saying. Take your MoFi on a road trip to other Cell Towers in your area.
You will need a power adaptor for your car to power the MoFI.......... See link

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZY ... UTF8&psc=1

[Adm1jtg]

I am also on Verizon and had the same issue.... It always seeing my data as hotspot data. Unfortunately while I did find a work around you likely won't like my solution. I ditched the mofi (also had a sim4) and built my own unit consisting of a wg3526 and an ep06-a modem. Total cost was 160 USD. The ep06 has 2x carrier aggregation AND band 66 support.

Now with that config I had to set the ttl to 64 AND "refresh my imei" to a known Verizon phone, I had sitting in a drawer. Works perfectly on a basic unlimited plan. So far have used somewhat over 300gb.

I cannot give you details on the imei stuff as that's not allowed in this forum but I stumbled across a reference to how to do it in the 7455 thread.

Am happy to answer any other questions you may have, including my yagi setup, and how to build your own unit.

[Dr-BroadBand]

Awesome thanks for the clues!!