Needing Help on Home Internet Setup

[jiggz125]

I am moving to rural location, Frontier/DSL was supposed to be out there but they said it's less than 1mb down... And won't sell me service. I've got alot of questions and need help getting something stable for work and hopefully whole home wifi solution.

Patiently waiting on Starlink. Was in the beta area but never got an invite. I'm up in NW WI.

So far I've located 1 tower near me it's at&t, gets decent speeds 10-25 at times, upload pretty sub par less than 3mbs upload. Confirmed by using prepaid sim in my Google Pixel 2. I think I've located a T-Mobile tower but while using pre-paid sim in same phone I'm getting terrible signal/speed. However, the address came up for T Mobile home internet which I ordered, modem is backordered until January, but I'm afraid it won't be that great.

So I am wondering best option to get set up with at&t more than likely (maybe Visible) wife's phone sometimes gets around 5mbs out there.

-Needing to be able to hook up regular wifi router, I'm not sure if there is certain type that works best with LTE setup?
-Need preferably unlimited data.
-want best option to try these out, I think in my research I can change APN and TTL if I had to, not confident I can build a modem/router, so would likely just like to buy the unit pre built.
-would a Nighthawk M1 help? Not crazy about spending $400 on MoFi, as I've read there are likely better options out there.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated, I hope T-Mobile works, or I get Starlink invite soon but really needing to figure out in next month. Sorry never had to set anything like this you before. Have been reading forums here, reddit, and FB for about 4 months so I have an idea of what I need to do, just trying to not break the bank on something that won't work. Again, thanks for any help.

[Dr-BroadBand]

WI, is the #1 spot for 5G, not sure about the north part.

To get “unlimited” data you need to bend the rules of service for an iPad data plan.

This is getting harder to do. T-Mobile has a 100Gig for $50

First thing to do is understand what signal/band is in your area.

See
https://www.cellmapper.net

Knowing what Signal you are hunting for will impact your decision on which modem and Antenna

For example the M1 is awesome on paper
But lacks band 71. It’s also hard to set TTL

FYI
Google Store support claims Pixel XL 2 supports Band 71 aka LTE 600

on the other hand Pixel 2 doesn’t support band 71.

Band 71, 4G, 600MHz can be very helpful for rural areas!

The MoFI is big with the RV camper Crowd due to the easy setup. But is at the lower end of the food chain of modems and is overprice for what you get.


Also if your locations is remote and you need antennas and cabling could I add $400~600 To your set up cost.

It good to list your goals, what speed and up time are you looking for! Need for work are you doing E-Mails or Zoooom calls??

This is vary doable!! The skilled level on this form is off the chart. It will only take time and money to get you connected to the cloud

[Dr-BroadBand]

T-Mobile Home Internet 5G! | New 5G Capable Gateway goes live! WiFi-6

The only problem with the home internet with TM it may not be in your area.
Also adding an antenna could be a trick. Just found this NEW TM Gateway and I am looking into it.

See
https://youtu.be/I22rkTfGdKg

[jiggz125]

Thanks for both of your replies. I have signed up for T-Mobile home internet, its back-ordered until Jan 15th...I wasn't aware of T-Mobile where I am building my home, but I am hoping it works.

I've confirmed nearest tower is at&t, and my local store sells the stand alone ipad plan for $20. So I think I will start with that and use that for our home/family WiFI, I am wanting to figure out my work situation as well. As far as being home, we use streaming for everything (our TV I hope will be farmer 5 over the air antenna) then we use Netflix, amazon prime, Disney+ and I've got it set up where we cast to the TVs using Google Chromecast Devices (not sure if this is a problem over LTE). Wife and I have discussed we may need to temper our streaming until we get this figured out.

I use work all day, e-mail, our system is web-based so I guess browsing with the occasional download of documents mainly word and pdfs and jpegs. I do use a jabber device for phone calls incoming and outgoing which is also ran through the internet and works system. We have zoom calls approx 1x per month. Would anyone know how I can check how much data I use in a typical work week/month?

I am looking for more stable connection for work, but doesn't need to be super fast. We have had both cable/DSL here in town, I pay $70 for cable and rarely get over 20mbs. However my setup is as this, ISPs modem, hooked to my Tenda WiFI Router, Ethernet from there to my work router, work router to my workstation via Ethernet.

I am alright spending money if I know its going to work, so I am in testing phase now, and where I am is that I know I can get somewhat decent at&t on a pre-paid cell plan in my google pixel 2, which is not an XL.

[jiggz125]

I have gone on https://www.cellmapper.net, there is a tower not showing up on there that I am about 99% sure is T-Mobile and is approx, I'll show you the address and google map. Is it normal for them to not show up on the map? I've driven by with my prepaid T-mobile plan and was getting 40-50 mbs.

The at&t tower I reference shows up there are two right next to each other offering bands 2,5,&17?

The photo I am approx at green, tower not showing up that I think is T-Mobile is marked in red and as a crow flies is 4.28 miles away. Coordinates are 45.212430, -92.686305 I called local township people, they said it is in fact a T-Mobile tower, its on a very busy hwy so weird not showing on CellMapper...

any advice or help on this would be cool as I would like to know my options with T-mobile.

[jtrow]

Since Cellmapper is driven by a database of user contributions, there are sometimes gaps in the coverage where you would like to see more.

You could certainly drive around with a T-Mobile phone with the Cellmapper app on, and then contribute your own datapoints, and [after a delay] the local T-Mobile towers would be better represented on the map. While you are driving around, the app itself may also give you a better feel for the coverage.

Also, of course, your contributed datapoints would help the next guy in your area with similar questions.

PS Should have added, yes, that looks like a tower at that coordinate.