Wireless Joint

Hello, all,

This board/site looks amazing and I'm hoping you can help me with what has turned out to be a very frustrating install of Ubifi (Mofi4500 with the Simply Unlimited Plan). I purchased the Mofi and the Wilson directional antenna, which is now installed on the outside of my home. Before I purchased the Mofi, I had acquired the "AT&T Home Base Wireless Internet 4G LTE WiFi Router", which I still use for my home phone and internet (without issues). I am able to get a solid 1 bar of LTE in the upstairs window where the unit is installed, and this goes up to 2 bars when I plug in the Wilson directional antenna that I purchased for the Mofi (with the Wilson antenna plugged in, I can routinely get upwards of 20Mbps on the AT&T device). Since I'm "grandfathered" in with an unlimited plan using the AT&T device, things are working well but AT&T can throttle me any time I go over 22gb of data per month (they haven't actually throttled me in the past, but they can, which is why I went looking for a "true" unlimited plan... enter Ubifi). Also, if anything ever goes wrong with the AT&T device, AT&T has indicated that they will not activate a new one for me (and if I make any changes to my account I will lose unlimited data on this device).

The Mofi came in about a month ago and I plugged it in upstairs to confirm that I had a connection, etc and after about 5 min of testing everything looked good with download speeds around 7-8Mbps. At that point, I put it back in the box and waited until I could get help installing the antenna on the outside of my house thinking that would drastically improve the Mofi's performance so I waited patiently until last Thursday, when the antenna finally got installed. Now that the antenna is installed, I have a major problem: the connection I'm getting with the Mofi is very intermittent... even with the antenna plugged in. When it connects, I get somewhere between 5 and 10Mbps, with which, honestly, I would be happy, but it is turning out to be such an unreliable connection that I'm not sure what to do. I've tried using boosters (analog and digital... see details below) and can't seem to get this thing working anywhere nearly as reliably as the cheap AT&T router that the Mofi was meant to replace. The device I have from AT&T proves that I'm capable of getting upwards of 20Mbps over LTE at my house but I'm not seeing even a marginally usable connection with the Mofi... What can I do?

Some of the thoughts I have are as follow:

• Are my issues with the Mofi just due to a less sensitive antenna than in my AT&T router and, if so, can I just use my "Simply Unlimited" sim card in a different router that would work better?

• I've seen reference on this bulletin board to a plan that can be signed up for similar to the Unlimited Plan but it requires off-board communication to learn about... can someone message me about that?

• Are there other antennas I could install outside my home that would resolve this? I'm tempted to buy 2 directional antennas and install them both going into the Mofi in hopes that would resolve the issue, but I have a feeling this is just a bad device since the results are so poor vs. what I have through AT&T

Here is some other relevant information that might be helpful in helping me get the ideal setup:

• The AT&T router shows a signal strength of around -110 to -112db and is very stable. The Mofi seems to jump all over the place. I have to constantly restart it to get a connection and then it invariably loses it after a short time.

• I've done the band scanning option through the Mofi and the only band that works for me at all in my location is Band 12. I have the Mofi locked into that band.

• My ideal setup is to use both of the connections that I have available. Both are currently connected to a Grandstream Multi-Wan router that allows for 2 or more connections in a load balancing/failover scenario. While I'm not super happy with the Grandstream device, it does seem to do the job and I plan to keep both the AT&T and Ubifi connections active (if possible) for the foreseeable future. My alternatives prior to this were Frontier, which literally provided a 1.1Mbps connect and Viasat, which has datacaps and latencies which are far from ideal for my purposes.

• The boosters I'm currently using are as follows:
  • Analog: Z-boost zb575A with a simple 2.4Ghz antenna on the roof of my house hardwired into the the unit
  • Digital: Cel-fi (AT&T version)

• My current configuration is as follows:
  • AT&T router: installed in upstairs window where connection is best. The Wilson directional antenna is connected directly to this device (not the Mofi, since that didn't result in a stable connection)
  • Mofi from Ubifi: installed in a server closet downstairs where the zb575A is located. The Cel-fi booster has the Network Unit in the window upstairs where the connection is best and the Coverage Unit in the server closet downstairs. The Mofi currently either has no connection at all or it shows 4 bars of LTE with a signal strength of around -80db. I have no idea why it flashes on and off. When it has a connection, it has much higher latency than the AT&T router (110ms vs. 60ms) and hits slower download speeds that the AT&T router (5-10Mbps vs 17-20Mbps)

I apologize for a long-winded first post but I am at my wit's end and hoping that collective brain power of this forum can point me in the right direction.

Many thanks!!

WVLTEUser
Based in Wayne County, West Virginia

A quick update after a call with the Ubifi folks... they said that the presence of my Z-boost analog booster in close proximity to the MoFi could cause interference, which would likely make the router not work stably. The ideal is to place the booster around 25ft away from the MoFi. To test their theory, I simply unplugged the Z-boost and moved my Cel-Fi booster approximately 20' away from the MoFi. Since then, I have more or less had a stable connection. It's still not as fast as the AT&T connection, but it seems to be doing pretty well so far... obviously, I'm a little hesitant to believe that that is all there is to it, but I'm taking what I can get at this point.

The above said: I'm still anxious to learn all I can about optimal configuration from the users on this forum. A few Mbps difference could be life changing for me, so I'm anxious to do whatever I can to optimize my LTE based home internet.

Thanks!

Is your Wilson antenna setup only one antenna, or do you have two of them?

What antennas are on your Mofi? The factory ones? Have you tried connecting the outdoor antennas to the Mofi?

swwifty wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 7:29 pm Is your Wilson antenna setup only one antenna, or do you have two of them?

What antennas are on your Mofi? The factory ones? Have you tried connecting the outdoor antennas to the Mofi?

Hi, Swwifty,

The Wilson setup is only one antenna (the one found at this link:https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/wilson ... hm-311135/).

I have the factory antennas on the MoFi... yes. I have tried attaching the outdoor antenna as outlined in the original post. The connection was intermittent, so I have tried to come up with an alternate solution.

wvlteuser wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:16 pm Hi, Swwifty,

The Wilson setup is only one antenna (the one found at this link:https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/wilson ... hm-311135/).

I have the factory antennas on the MoFi... yes. I have tried attaching the outdoor antenna as outlined in the original post. The connection was intermittent, so I have tried to come up with an alternate solution.

Interesting, it doesn't look like thats a MIMO antenna (two antennas in one enclosure) so basically you're losing half of your possible download speed.

Hooking up the external antenna to the Mofi would effectively cut download speeds in half.

swwifty wrote: Sat Sep 21, 2019 3:12 pm Interesting, it doesn't look like thats a MIMO antenna (two antennas in one enclosure) so basically you're losing half of your possible download speed.

Hooking up the external antenna to the Mofi would effectively cut download speeds in half.

Looks like I linked the wrong product... here's the one I actually have:
https://www.ubifi.net/product/wilson-ou ... l-antenna/.

Will it have the same problem? I'm hitting close to 20Mbps on my old AT&T router hooked up to this thing. When I had it directly connected to the Mofi, the signal was intermittent.

wvlteuser wrote: Sat Sep 21, 2019 7:52 pm Looks like I linked the wrong product... here's the one I actually have:
https://www.ubifi.net/product/wilson-ou ... l-antenna/.

Will it have the same problem? I'm hitting close to 20Mbps on my old AT&T router hooked up to this thing. When I had it directly connected to the Mofi, the signal was intermittent.

looks like it's only one antenna since it only has one connector. A mimo antenna that has two antennas built into the same enclosure will have two connectors.

I'd recommend getting a MIMO antenna, or two physically separate antennas. I suspect you'll get much better performance with that.

swwifty wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 11:05 am looks like it's only one antenna since it only has one connector. A mimo antenna that has two antennas built into the same enclosure will have two connectors.

I'd recommend getting a MIMO antenna, or two physically separate antennas. I suspect you'll get much better performance with that.

It's interesting that you say that as both the AT&T device and, of course, the MoFi have multiple antenna ports on them. I am currently getting closer to 13Mbps on the MoFi after disconnecting the z-boost and connecting the coax cable that was feeding it (connected to the antenna linked here: https://tinyurl.com/yxdvx9gw) directly into the MoFi (I had to get an adapter to drop the dimensions down to the correct size). Since doing that, I have a stable 2 bars LTE showing up and the download speeds have been more than good enough for me.

Your commentary, though, has me wondering if I can put another antenna on the roof and run it down as well... will that get me more throughput?

wvlteuser wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 2:11 pm It's interesting that you say that as both the AT&T device and, of course, the MoFi have multiple antenna ports on them. I am currently getting closer to 13Mbps on the MoFi after disconnecting the z-boost and connecting the coax cable that was feeding it directly into the MoFi (I had to get an adapter to drop the dimensions down to the correct size). Since doing that, I have a stable 2 bars LTE showing up and the download speeds have been more than good enough for me.

Your commentary, though, has me wondering if I can put another antenna on the roof and run it down as well... will that get me more throughput?

Yes, LTE is built for two antennas (aka antenna diversity, spatial multiplexing, etc.), so you really need two antennas outside with cables run inside to the two connectors on the modem. Otherwise, you're likely giving up half your download speeds. Upload makes no difference as LTE only uses one antenna for upload.

Interesting... I suppose I'm kind-of using two antennas because the devices themselves have built in antennas, but only one of the 2 has a decent signal to work with.

I have an idea to add another 2 wilson omnidirectional antennas (like the one I linked before) with one feeding the AT&T router and the other feeding the MoFi, such that they would both have two antennas feeding into their antenna ports. At a cost of $150 (one time fee), that's peanuts if you think that could realistically give me a significant boost in speed/throughput.

If I'm getting 13Mbps now on the MoFi, I'm sure it's unrealistic to expect 26Mbps... what would you think would be a realistic expectation? I'm thinking maybe 20Mbps or so, which would be interesting because that's around the max that the AT&T router currently gets when in the upstairs window where the signal is best (probably receiving, essentially, from 2 antennas instead of one). What do you think?

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you are trying to accomplish, but ideally what ever device and modem you are using for service should have both antennas outside. There is LTE antennas you can get that have two antennas in one enclosure. This is typically called a MIMO antenna in advertising.

In my many experiments i typically find that only having one antenna attached to the primary antenna port on the modem cuts the download speed in half.

This is assuming a lot of variables in your location, distance from the tower, etc, but if you are running in the highest transmission mode in LTE (this is something you can't control the modem and the cell figure this out automatically) then you'll more than likely get double the speed.

It's also not just about spatial multiplexing, if you are in a place where signal is really poor then having the second antenna helps with error correction as the modem will run in spatial diversity mode and you'll likely see less packet loss and a more stable connection (but maybe not more speed.)

I know wilsonamplifiers. They have competitors. I bought - https://www.myamplifiers.com/repeater-20/
It supports all mobile operators in the UK.
Easy to install. Works good
Two antennas, convenient mounts and a long cable, 12V power adaptor.

I have an Ubifi setup at my cabin and went through similar issues as you minus the connection instability but it sounds like you got that one sorted. I think it's very strange that Ubifi doesn't clue you in that you need 2 of their overpriced wilson antennas to make an effective setup. In my case I had also ordered one antenna with 75 feet of cable and I had 20-30mbps but my signal didn't improve much at all over the antennas that come with the device. I ended up finding this forum and ordered 2 of the https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/4g-lte ... l-antenna/ and 6 ft of cable and have a slightly improved signal and average probably 50mbps now. I am very much crossing my fingers that the https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/antennas/700-27 ... l-antenna/ antennas come back in stock soon as I have heavy leaf cover in my area and hoping they make a difference. Also I can add that Ubifi doesn't want you to use their sim cards in another device other than a Mofi 4500. I have a feeling that At&t would disable your card if you tried but it sure would be nice to know for sure.