MoFi5500-5GXeLTE-EM9191 Review - DON'T BUY!!

[Primitive]

This is a review for the item in the subject line, and the company that sells it.

First let me start off with a little about me, given that this is my first post here. Long time lurker, and collector of data, but first post.

I am an IT guy, both professionally and personally. I work in networking, systems, and software including cellular. I own several different routers personally, and operate several more for clients including commercial and enterprise-class systems. I have been working with OpenWRT for a little over 3 years now, and am pretty familiar with it's functionality. I also live off-grid and built a solar powered cell tower to connect to the internet. So I use these devices every day.

So about a week ago I bought the device above. I paid for overnight shipping on a Thursday, early in the day and didn't receive it until the following Monday. They drug their feet a bit on getting it in the mail, and didn't have it picked up until Friday, which means it got to me Monday. Annoying, but no big deal, although I am looking forward to getting that money back.

When I received it, I set it up at the house and then took it up the hill to where my cell tower lives. I unplugged the current router, and plugged this thing in. ((Side note here: This device is huge, if you have a setup like mine, it wouldn't fit in my pole-mounted enclosure, and I have a pretty big one. So if you're planning on getting this, get the biggest enclosure you can find.)) I had it set to prioritize 5G over LTE and figured it would just connect right in to the N71 band I use on T-Mo. It did not. In fact, it couldn't even see it. I have 3 options for bands here on T-Mo, B12(LTE) which gets ~60Mbps down and ~20Mbps up, B71(LTE) which gets ~15Mbps down and ~5Mbps up, and N71(5G) which gets ~120Mbps down and ~40Mbps up. As you can imagine I expected this to work on N71. So I spent the next couple hours up there tweaking the settings, but not only would it not connect to N71, it couldn't even see it. Nor could it see the Verizon 5G bands that are also available up here. Disappointed, I plugged the old router back in and headed home. Lastly. when it did connect to B12, the best speeds it would get were ~40Mbps down, and ~10Mbps up. This is the same as a 2x2 MIMO router/modem I have. This thing is supposed to do 4x4 MIMO with 5x CA.

The next day I called their "tech support". I was told that the "lead tech" would email me with some instructions by the end of the day. No email. So I called in again and let them know that I hadn't heard from him. At this point they told me that I wasn't the only customer with this problem and that there should be an update within a week. I asked to get a call from the "lead tech" who was supposed to email me that day. They said he would call me tomorrow. No call. So the next day(today), I called again and asked to speak with this "lead tech". The guy on the phone told me that it would be at least a month (after the return period) before the update would come out, and that some customers were working fine on 5G. I am pretty sure this was a lie. I offered to exchange the device for another that might work, and expressed how upset I was about being lied to about the email and the call back. At this point, he said he would send me a return label... Not what I asked for, but sure, I'll take it.

In conclusion, I am happy to return this and never deal with this company again. They are not interested in customer service, they do not have a "tech support", and they would rather sweep a problem under the rug than deal with it. I still don't have a return label from them, and it's the end of the day, I wonder if I will ever get one.

TL;DR
Don't deal with this dishonest company who sells at best faulty equipment, and at worst is selling a product they KNOW doesn't work.

[fubarsam]

I understand your frustration. I bought the Mofi5500 5GxeLTE EM9191 as well. The things that really bothered me was the lack of how to set it up. I searched and searched to no avail. The website does not have anything to really help. I trial and error the darn thing for days. I would update it as soon as a new firmware would come in. (which was every day.)

I had previous to this model the 4500 Mofi router. It took a bit to get used to the interface but I understood it enough and was able to get it working. I live in rural Alabama and the only cable we can get where I live is Century Stink. A half a megabit at best and crappy customer service. So I was overjoyed when my 4500 was able to get between 25 and 30 megabit a second. I use At&t on my phone and router. My phone could get sometimes a hundred and fifty megabits a second outside. I wished that my 4500 could also get that. But it did not have carrier aggregation on the router. Until I bought the 5500.

It has been trial and error for the last month but I have to say that my internet speeds are at about 130 megabits a second. I am happy with it even with all the headaches in the beginning. Sorry you had so many problems. I hope you can find a better solution for your internet needs.

[Johnsieve]

has anyone had any bettery luck with the mofi5500? i am looking to use this (well a em9190) in my peplink, and would like to make my em9190 appear as a 9191, and was wonderfing if you at AT command access? if so, i am looking for values when running the commands below...

Code: Select all

AT!USBPID?
AT!USBVID?
AT!PCIESSDID?
AT!PCIESSVID?

Also, sierra is making quite a bit of progress on the firmware, two releases within the past month fwiw

any help is appreciated, thanks

[gscheb]

Yes mofi is a bad company. What they will do is string you along until you are past the money back period. Don't mess with them if you used a credit card call right now and put in a dispute. They will not stand behind their product. Used to try to warn new people on the forum but people wouldn't listen so quite trying.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=758&p=4544&hilit\

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=514&p=4604#p4604

[uwave]

i'm wondering if anyone else here is on montebello rd cup - with the 5500 9191 often times its critical to get the right lte/5g access name e.g. att is nxtgenphone and install that in the machine's 4g 5g setup. when i first got a mofi, it didn't work any higher than 0.1 mbps then after setting the name to match my phone, it began to operate. i'm looking for info on their 5g solution - has anyone at all had success with this seller

[memog1]

Yeah, I got the 5500-EM7690 and have been on my own as far as support goes despite /u/mofi on reddit. I have taken much into my own hands and even gone through compiling my own software to flash the modem since their Linux arch is MIPSEL..maybe MIPS. I got the 5500 not long ago. I am a software geek so not long after getting it I decided to reset the module to defaults which destroyed the firmware. Luckily I was able to figure stuff out since I have a background in hardware and software enough to get the unit working again. Now I am working on some "stand alone" software that can be changed via ssh access to the shell.

[Angus7]

I have several MoFi5500-5GXeLTE cellular modems (there is more than one model). All are in service in rural areas with poor cellular coverage. I get better service than what's available from any of the other ISPs in the area that use different technology.

If you have minimal computer management skills you should be able to set up and manage one of these without assistance. They do not have a specific user guide for this model. They only offer a user guide for an older model. You don't need it. They do have sufficient instructions for loading firmware updates on their Website, and that's all you need. When you set one up be aware that the cellular network does take awhile to recognize the device and activate service for it. In most cases you need to activate the SIM card first using a phone. If you don't activate the SIM with a phone you will likely never get things to work. That's just how the cellular companies operate. After you activate the SIM use the MoFi Wizard to set the MoFi up. It only has a couple questions and they are self explanatory. Once you provide the information the MoFi will reboot. After that it may take 30 minutes for the network to activate service the first time. Just leave it alone and be patient. After that when a reboot is done it should only be 2-4 minutes.

You are essentially grabbing service the cellular company has no intention of selling you. So don't piss and moan that life isn't perfect. Sometimes you may need to tweak a couple of the cellular configuration parameters to get things working. No, there is no documentation. Use your brain and make small changes.

Unless you are right next to a cell tower you aren't going to get amazing speed. Even if you are the cellular company is going to throttle you. Because you aren't paying for stupendous speed. But you should get good speed. Mine varies but I see between 5 Mbps and 15 Mbps, which is more than 10X faster than is available from anything else. I can reliably stream 3 simultaneous videos without buffering. What more does anybody need?

No cellular modem is perfect. I have had tech support both by eMail and by phone. I was so impressed with the first I purchased 2 more.

[longfellow]

I know this thread is a little older but i just wanted to post my experience.

I'm sure they make a good product but their support is terrible. I opened a ticket and waited many days for them to respond. I then responded to that ticket and told them if they aren't going to help then I was going to return the device. I still never heard anything. After reading online that they wait to respond until after your return period is up i decided to file a claim with paypal. Not 30 minutes after that they emailed me wanting to know my issues. I told them I had T-Mobile Home internet and it wasn't working. They said it won't work at this time. I then told them they need to add that to the description on their website so people don't buy it for T-Mobile Home Internet. At that point they sent me a return label but said I would have to pay shipping both ways. I told them that shouldn't be the case since the product description wasn't accurate. Things really went south when they responded by insulting me calling me a scammer, scum, trash. They then said "So you want us to tell every customer when we sell the router that it does not work on T-mobile home internet?". I told them yes so people don't buy a product for home internet thinking it will work. I 100% believe they are only about making money and not protecting their customers. I will never ever purchase another product with the name MOFI Networks on the front. I encourage everyone to do some research on Mofi's support before you buy from them.

[DonPat]

Had no issue with them, very impressed with their support actually.

[_bsd0]

Every company has a shill