Recommended modem and router for U.S. Cellular / Verizon

[cagordon1985]

Hello All,

I have read around a bit on here but am still a bit mixed up on what would be some recommended gear to grab at thewirelesshaven.com

I have a U.S. Cellular tower near that I suspect Verizon shares. (as my brother has Verizon and gets identical services to my Google FI using U.S. Cellular). Also I have saw several friends using verizon leveraged prepaids from walmart, like family mobile. etc..

I am located in northern Craig county Oklahoma, I am not sure of my towers LTE band after checking online. It didn't explicitly list it.

I totally screwed up and bought a router and sim from Nomad that I plan on returning, I hadn't stumbled across this site yet.

I've glanced at the GL-X750V2, NEXQ6GO and WG3526. The part I am semi hestiant on is modem card selection. I am just overloaded a bit by the total selection of hardware. Or any additonal compatability requirements.

Any suggestions for Router and Modem card that would be comptable with Verizon or U.S. Cellular would be greatly appreciated! Maybe I am just being lazy but here's to making new friends!

Thanks,
Gorb

[Didneywhorl]

Hey, welcome!

Grab the WG3626-P router with a Quectel EM12G, or Sierra EM7565 modem. Id say the Sierra if you wanted a random decision maker.

https://thewirelesshaven.com/product-category/modems/

Its a great combo that can pull great speeds without breaking the bank.

This listing has the right parts included for using those modems in the WG3526-P router: https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/route ... parts-kit/

[MattB29]

Be aware that practically no modem router is compatible with Verizon. This is because Verizon requires it to be certified with them. However many can be made to work on Verizon with effort as described here on Wireless Joint. From what I read most folks have the most success using Visible (A Verizon MVNO)as the carrier.

[Didneywhorl]

US Mobile seems to be the new Verizon fad as well

[gscheb]

US Mobile seems to be the new Verizon fad as well

I haven't seen instructions on how to set this up. Or people's experiences with it?
Maybe this is on the facebook page?

[Didneywhorl]

There aren't any instructions per say. It seems to be about like Verizon tablet SIMs. Usually requires a modem imei change. (We don't talk of this here) and then a proper APN. I don't know the APN, but I can ask.

[cagordon1985]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I do appreciate the input from everyone here. Awesome community. Sorry for the delayed reponse. Work was CRAZY this week.

[Adm1jtg]

Late to the party but I have a setup with a wg3526 and a epo6-a modem. There is lots of technical data and reasons I picked this modem over others but here is a quick breakdown:
1) PCIE form factor meanig the antenna connectors on the modem card are larger and easier to connect to
2) Price, this was the lowest priced card that had BOTH carrier aggregation and band 66 support
3) Quectel allows you to change IMEI with a single command

I picked the wg3526 enclosure for very similar reasons:
1) Price, this was the lowest priced enclosure that had 2.4 and 5ghz wifi with gigabit eithernet ports
2) Was a little larger then the others and metal so cooling would be much less of an issue
3) It run the wifix firmware aka goldenorb so stable and widely supported firmware thats opensource

As far as finding what bands your tower uses I usually just check what the carrier is capable of using in my case I am verzon so I knew it COULD use any or all of the following:
2,4,5,13,66. The ep06 does NOT support band 71 but since only tmobile uses this band and i have no tmobile service for miles this was fine for my setup.

[cagordon1985]

So today I got some hodge podge yagi's up. 700-2700mhz generic ones for $35.

They are @ 55'ish, using N-SMA coax down the pole, through the window to EC25-AF and a x750.

Been very interesting, I am able to hit 2,4,5,12,13,14,66,71 so far.

4, 14 and 66 look to be ATT (14 is the responders band I suspect.), They were decent speeds about 20mbps down / 3 up, for the setup I am not upset. Ping had some bloat. Would be about 60-80ms, then once load hit 250-1000ms.

2 and 71 look to be tmobile lte bands maybe 5... 2 yielded great speeds about 45mbps down / 10mbps up with a stable ping. 71 was about 15mbps down / 3mbps up with a very stable ping also. Under load, maybe a 20-30ms variance.

12 is US cellular, freaking immaculant reception. $150+fees for 150GB though yuck. Speeds on U.S. cell hit 80mbps, I think that is my theoretical max on a X750 and EC25-AF coming through the 100mbps ethernet ya?

13 is verizon and maybe 5? Not sure on 5 yet, maybe its just a CA band? Can't register to it yet. Verizon is right there with US cell. The towers are south of me, well in clear view, at the same elevation with no obstructions. I may need to look into some form of postpaid verizon, Visible is nice but the VPN they route you through kills latency, My tower with postpaid verizon is 30-50ms, once visible vpn is in the mix, its 120ms+

This is a fun hobby,

I do appreciate everyones guidance here. I'm trying to think of a way to show my appreciation to everyone here. Hard when we all stay mostly anon. I'll come up with something.

[cagordon1985]

Oh also I am on band 71 right now. It is working pretty good albeit its lte band 71 lol.

Have a tmobile home gateway coming.

After poking around with my phone a bit more, I am thinking n41 and n71 are pushing the 5g just up the hill. I suspect with some thinking I can make this thing work with decent speeds.