Comments on: K-dubs and the Po-Po

By: Laura Domela

Laura Domela — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 17:44:00 +0000

Yes, here’s a link to the new antenna (soon to come in white): http://www.yoursinglepoint.com/product/roof-mount-antenna/. We’d suggest contacting the folks at Singlepoint to see if this solution would work for you (if you’re interested).

By: Steve Mitchell

Steve Mitchell — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:46:00 +0000

In reply to Laura Domela.

Hi Laura,
Do you have any details on the antenna or any pictures? I’ve been searching for one, and already having invested in my Pepwave, I’m not interested in buying a pre built product and spending more money!

My Pepwave has all of the same features as yours it sounds like, other than the antenna!

By: Laura Domela

Laura Domela — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 04:10:00 +0000

In reply to Steve Mitchell.

Hi Steve,

Yes, Singlepoint is working with Pepwave to create systems with special versions of the Pepwave MAX series for RV and Marine use, bundled with antenna and cabling and even service plans. We have a test version of an antenna they’re going to be offering that looks awesome! It’s a marine-grade enclosure that has diversity LTE (two separate LTE antennas), Wi-Fi, and GPS. The router we have has two modems that each have two sim cards. So, we plan to use two of these antennas that will give us four LTE antennas (two diversity antennas for each modem) as well as external diversity Wi-Fi antennas (one in each antenna unit), plus GPS. This should give us even better performance than we are seeing today.

Yes, the Wi-Fi as WAN loses some Wi-Fi performance because of the bandwidth sharing that’s going on, but at least in any marina we’ve ever been to, that will never be the weak link in the chain. The weak link will always be the marina Wi-Fi, the number of people using it, and your distance from the marina antennas. Having the external diversity Wi-Fi antennas should give you the best solution to that problem.

The original version of these new antennas is black, but they tell us a white version that will probably look better on a boat is coming soon. 🙂

By: Jeannie

Jeannie — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 03:48:00 +0000

In reply to Laura Domela. Thank you so much for the info. Do you know if the sim cards can be removed from the phones and used? My husband is trying to figure it out. The hot spot usage with Sprint isn't unlimited evidentially. We are wondering if we can use the Verizon for all internet and then the sim card from a sprint phone for the streaming?

By: Laura Domela

Laura Domela — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:02:00 +0000

In reply to Jeannie.

Hi Jeannie,
The issue is video. Streaming a single movie will probably use 10 times more data than everything else you do in an entire month (it uses about 2.5GB per hour to stream video). Streaming music uses about 0.2GB per hour. Probably nothing else you do consumes even a tiny fraction of what those do. Considering that a lot data plans charge $10-$15 for 1GB of data, then watching one movie would use $50-$75 worth of data. We use a TMobile unlimited card on ours and maybe TMobile and/or Sprint don’t count Netflix on your data, so it might be worth exploring those options if you’re really wanting to stream video.
Hope that’s helpful! 🙂

By: Jeannie

Jeannie — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:24:00 +0000

In reply to Steve Mitchell. Thanks for posting such wonderful information. We purchased our Airstream in November and after reading your blog, purchased the Moovbox from Singlepoint. The speed is fine and very reliable, but we have been hit with HUGE data charges. We started with a 10gig plan then moved up to 20 and now they tell us that last month we used 110gb!! It is costing us a fortune. We do occasionally stream movies and we did watch the House of Cards, but it seems excessive. We are looking for comparisons to what quantity others are using. Can you advise? My husband does use the internet for business and lots of emailing with the once per week or so of movie. Advise appreciated! Thanks, Jeannie

By: Steve Mitchell

Steve Mitchell — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:00:00 +0000

Interesting solution. It looks like they’re re-packaging a Pepwave Transit device. What sort of antenna options do they provide for the WiFi as WAN?

I use a Peplink MAX BR1 on Grace (http://www.sailbits.com/blog/2016/03/sending-ais-data-slow-cellular-link/) and have meant to write up a review as I’ve gone through about the same number of solutions it sounds like you have.

I love the Peplink – I also have dual SIM’s – and use both of those as well as the WiFi as WAN depending on what marina I’m in. I’m considering adding a better WiFi antenna so I can pick up more distant signals, or potentially adding a Ubiquiti Bullet and wiring it to the actual physical WAN port on the Peplink.

Have you noticed any performance degradation when using WiFi as a WAN? Supposedly it uses the same antenna and radio both as a receiving and sending station, which should cut throughput in half. I’ve noticed a bit of that when using it on mine.

My marina has pretty terrible WiFi, and I have both an AT&T and Verizon SIM in the Peplink. I generally get 20Mbps down, and 5Mbps up on Verizon, which is more than adequate for the boat!