Internet pretty much everywhere via T-Mobile

[FredWilma]

Originally Posted by Troutboy

I wonder if peplink. Has any devices with the latest chip set? Anyone know. My Pro 5G max is about a year old and has worked great. Since I’m still working full time and I love tech, I would likely upgrade sooner than most. I can’t help it, I love to experiment with new stuff.

I am also holding out for the X65 chipset before spending $1,000 on a modem. I would like something that is somewhat future proof in this fast changing technology.

I am surprised that Peplink does not seem to have a product yet with this chipset, considering it has been available for over a year.

[Newbie Tom]

Originally Posted by skyguyscott

As someone old enough to remember the days when the output of computers were punchcards....

I just groaned in a flashback, because it was the input cards that I recall with dread.

The flashback was to a late night in 1982 in the "computer center" at Stevens Tech in Hoboken where i was doing a simple FORTRAN program for a senior design project. Nearby was a grad student, Asian IIRC, who had a four inch stack of cards that he was taking over to the card reader for compiling.

He must have been on a deadline as he was very nervous looking and turned to head for the machine but walked right into two people chatting. Yup, he got discombobulated, the cards flew out of his hands and spread across the floor. Outside of funerals, it was the first time I can recall seeing a grown man breakdown into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Worst thing is some erstwhile good samaritans decided to start picking up the cards in no particular order, rather than trying to find groups which were contiguous to the original ordering. Never knew if that made the recovery worse or not, just remember the guy saying "No, no, no" repeatedly.

There is a reason there were rubber bands available everywhere in the computer center in those days, he was just in a hurry I guess...

[CWSWine]

Originally Posted by FredWilma

I am also holding out for the X65 chipset before spending $1,000 on a modem. I would like something that is somewhat future proof in this fast changing technology.

I am surprised that Peplink does not seem to have a product yet with this chipset, considering it has been available for over a year.

I don't think you going to see Pepwave on the cutting edge of chips since their core market is business and emergency services. I think that you won't see the X65 chip released from Pepwave till the X75 chip is close to being released or has been released. There are other companies you can ride the wave of new products. I think you will find that the Pepwave interface and features are heads above the other manufacturers.

I have the BR1 with an X55 chipset and regularly get above 300 on speed tests with upload speeds of 20 to 50 and have got as high as 500 with upload speeds of 75. I know lots of people with the Pepwave DUO that doing just fine running ZOOM and etc off of a 4G connection.

My question would be what are you doing that requires speeds above 100 in an RV or just want to be cutting edge? My Hotspot 8800 is 5-6 years old and still works just fine and still would support 1080P.

I know people that brag they have fiber and download speeds of 1,000 and ask what they use it for and they say "To Watch Netflix".

Here is what some services recommend:
Peacock: Peacock recommends at least 2.5 Mbps of bandwidth for HD streaming. Hulu: Hulu looks for 3 Mbps for Hulu’s Streaming Library, 8 Mbps for live streams, 16 Mbps for 4K content. HBO Max: HBO Max recommends a minimum download speed of 5 Mbps to stream HD video.

[rmkrum]

Originally Posted by Newbie Tom

I just groaned in a flashback, because it was the input cards that I recall with dread.

The flashback was to a late night in 1982 in the "computer center" at Stevens Tech in Hoboken where i was doing a simple FORTRAN program for a senior design project. Nearby was a grad student, Asian IIRC, who had a four inch stack of cards that he was taking over to the card reader for compiling.

He must have been on a deadline as he was very nervous looking and turned to head for the machine but walked right into two people chatting. Yup, he got discombobulated, the cards flew out of his hands and spread across the floor. Outside of funerals, it was the first time I can recall seeing a grown man breakdown into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Worst thing is some erstwhile good samaritans decided to start picking up the cards in no particular order, rather than trying to find groups which were contiguous to the original ordering. Never knew if that made the recovery worse or not, just remember the guy saying "No, no, no" repeatedly.

There is a reason there were rubber bands available everywhere in the computer center in those days, he was just in a hurry I guess...

I remember those days!!!

We used to habitually draw a diagonal line with a black marker across any big deck of cards after carefully joggling and aligning them perfectly in a metal drawer like thing with a compression slide. It helped us spot a card out of order.

I disposed of my last metal card tray a few years ago. I still keep a few Hollerith cards and paper tape rolls around as part of my historical collection of computer stuff.

Ran a lot of “FORTRAN 4 with FORMAT” programs on an IBM 1620 back in the day. The card reader/punch was almost as big as the computer.

[DCPAS]

Originally Posted by DCPAS

Thank you. This is very useful. I am shopping for a hotspot now and still a bit uncertain what to get. I signed up for T Mobile's 90 day test and added its service to my phone to compare with my usual Verizon service. We are about to go from our Houston home to Montana and it will be interesting to compare the services along the way. I'll report here.

Following up on my trip and comparing Verizon and T-Mobile. My trip to Billings was mostly US highways and some Interstate. Many places where neither had service, but there was only one area in the OK panhandle where Verizon had service but T-Mobile did not. When I tested speed, T-Mobile was always faster.

[92landyacht]

Originally Posted by CWSWine

Here is what some services recommend:
Peacock: Peacock recommends at least 2.5 Mbps of bandwidth for HD streaming. Hulu: Hulu looks for 3 Mbps for Hulu’s Streaming Library, 8 Mbps for live streams, 16 Mbps for 4K content. HBO Max: HBO Max recommends a minimum download speed of 5 Mbps to stream HD video.

The one purpose for higher speeds and lower latency is live streaming of video conference calls. They require higher bandwidth because of a lack of buffering. Also online gaming must have lower latency.

It's actually more about proficient hardware that can support proper channel aggregation. As you've noticed, strong 4G LTE signals can force the device to lock onto only the 4G channel even though there are 5G channels available and less utilized. Newer chipsets are designed to address this issue.

Currently Peplink does not have an X65 option. They seem to be very reluctant to advertise which chipset they're using, but I was able to find out through reliable sources within the company that they do use the X55 on the BR1/BR2 Pro 5G.

With that said, be aware that just having the better chipset does not ensure that the device will be able to utilize all of the available bands for every network. Any device that is carrier branded (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon) will only support bands that that carrier is using along with some overutilized general use bands. Even when "Unlocked" they will only support a minimal amount of Sub 6 bands by design. One example is the Netgear MR6500 vs MR6550. Both are of the same hardware and chipset design. The MR6500 is an AT&T only device. When unlocked, it will support a T-Mobile sim card but will not have the same band support or performance as the truly unlocked MR6550 on the T-Mobile network. This is unique to mobile hotspots as they're designed for the carrier to perform on the carrier's network. Generic phones from Samsung and Apple for example are designed to work on several carrier networks. The Peplink devices are not carrier specific so they will support most available bands.

[92landyacht]

My history dates back to the late Fortran era. Yes, we still used punch cards, but paper tape was a better option along with reel-to-reel. Soon after that I was indoctrinated into the world of C-Language. I programmed in that form, or some variation, for years. My occupation was Test Engineer for various cellular device manufacturers in both manufacturing support and design. Was still actively in industry until 4G came into being. I envy those currently in the field as they're going to be developing future products with amazing capabilities. 5G and beyond will be huge... Again! We're just at the bleeding edge of its introduction. It's designed to support so much more than 4G LTE. Think autonomous driving, IoT devices and critical emergency communications.

[Newbie Tom]

Originally Posted by rmkrum

I remember those days!!!

We used to habitually draw a diagonal line with a black marker across any big deck of cards after carefully joggling and aligning them perfectly in a metal drawer like thing with a compression slide. It helped us spot a card out of order.

I disposed of my last metal card tray a few years ago. I still keep a few Hollerith cards and paper tape rolls around as part of my historical collection of computer stuff.

Ran a lot of “FORTRAN 4 with FORMAT” programs on an IBM 1620 back in the day. The card reader/punch was almost as big as the computer.

Try explaining that entire process to a 20-something today.

[rmkrum]

Only have to wave a 80 column card or an 8” floppy at them and see their eyes glaze over…

[CWSWine]

I remember punch cards and 8 inch floppy drives. This was my first removable hard drive platter and it held an amazing 1 Meg.

[rmkrum]

Still have an old card program template (price was 26 cents) used to set up sort, collate and process Hollerith cards throug all the old mostly mechanical hardware including the 407 Accounting Machine—programmed with plugboards and wires. Shook the floor as it operated and smelled of ozone from all the relays.

[kscherzi]

I have two phones, one T Mobile, the other Verizon. T Mobile used to have middling coverage while Verizon was king, but lately that's all changed. Now probably 90% of the time, T Mobile delivers while my Verizon phone says no coverage, or a weak single bar. My experience is mainly the western US.

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by CWSWine

I remember punch cards and 8 inch floppy drives. This was my first removable hard drive platter and it held an amazing 1 Meg.

I was in a Fortran class at De Anza College waiting for my "printout" from my card deck, along with 20 or so other students in the lab. Took couple hours for some reason and we were all waiting...10 min to midnight when the lab closed, the printer started going crazy printing out everyones results...with a big title printed in big letters: "THE WOZ" printed out first at the top. Was Wozniak from Apple screwing with everyone's programs. I remember the 8 1/2" floppys and 9 track drives, along with the 360 MB removeable hard drives...I sold CAD/CAM systems before we had black and white monitors...green phosphorous displays from Tektronix...early days of CAD/CAM, LSI development and Printed Circuit board layout...when black and white monitors came out, everything started to change...we had gray scale to help distinguish layers of the PCB and LSI chips...year later color came out...and VLSI took off now that we could see the signal routing in multiple layers...industry was never the same! 44 years selling in that industry...which morphed into Electronic Design Automation for me...crazy technology life.

I remember going to Lockheed with the CAD/CAM sales side early in my carrer and they had a tile from the space shuttle in the "oven" in Sunnyvale site.
They had us "touch" it even though it was baking at 1000's of degrees...it was cool to the touch. They wanted us to take their equations they used to make these, and produce a drawing of the tiles! They wanted to use the drawing so QA could be don They had no actual drawings; only equations to Mfg! Also, Disneyland folks had us do same for Space Mountain...only equations and sketches...no actual accurate drawings...just equations!

[foobar]

Originally Posted by gypsydad

I was in a Fortran class at De Anza College waiting for my "printout" from my card deck, along with 20 or so other students in the lab. Took couple hours for some reason and we were all waiting...10 min to midnight when the lab closed, the printer started going crazy printing out everyones results...with a big title printed in big letters: "THE WOZ" printed out first at the top. Was Wozniak from Apple screwing with everyone's programs. I remember the 8 1/2" floppys and 9 track drives, along with the 360 MB removeable hard drives...I sold CAD/CAM systems before we had black and white monitors...green phosphorous displays from Tektronix...early days of CAD/CAM, LSI development and Printed Circuit board layout...when black and white monitors came out, everything started to change...we had gray scale to help distinguish layers of the PCB and LSI chips...year later color came out...and VLSI took off now that we could see the signal routing in multiple layers...industry was never the same! 44 years selling in that industry...which morphed into Electronic Design Automation for me...crazy technology life.

I remember going to Lockheed with the CAD/CAM sales side early in my carrer and they had a tile from the space shuttle in the "oven" in Sunnyvale site.
They had us "touch" it even though it was baking at 1000's of degrees...it was cool to the touch. They wanted us to take their equations they used to make these, and produce a drawing of the tiles! They wanted to use the drawing so QA could be don They had no actual drawings; only equations to Mfg! Also, Disneyland folks had us do same for Space Mountain...only equations and sketches...no actual accurate drawings...just equations!

Hey gypsydad, I was probably one of your customers :-) I recently retired from 35 years designing VLSI chips (and high performance cpus) for AT&T Bell Laboratories, Intel, AMD, IBM, startups, and finally Texas Instruments. When I started, complex chips had 48 transistors, no EDA other than Berkeley Spice for functional verification. Chip layout was done using grease pencils on mylar sheets that were exposed to high intensity light to create the chip manufacturing masks. DRC checks were performed manually using a ruler.

The last design I was involved with before I retired contained around 100 billion transistors :-). By the time I wrapped up my career, I had experience and expertise with all aspects of chip development, debug and test (from micro-architecture, through logic and custom circuit design, to chip layout, fabrication, and post silicon debug using SEM, voltage contrast, etc). Not many folks are around anymore that have experience with all of this stuff. Folks have to specialize now.

Now, I just spend time upgrading our airstream and enjoying the adventures that are enabled by it along with spending time with family, grandkids, and friends.

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by foobar

Hey gypsydad, I was probably one of your customers :-) I recently retired from 35 years designing VLSI chips (and high performance cpus) for AT&T Bell Laboratories, Intel, AMD, IBM, startups, and finally Texas Instruments. When I started, complex chips had 48 transistors, no EDA other than Berkeley Spice for functional verification. Chip layout was done using grease pencils on mylar sheets that were exposed to high intensity light to create the chip manufacturing masks. DRC checks were performed manually using a ruler.

The last design I was involved with before I retired contained around 100 billion transistors :-). By the time I wrapped up my career, I had experience and expertise with all aspects of chip development, debug and test (from micro-architecture, through logic and custom circuit design, to chip layout, fabrication, and post silicon debug using SEM, voltage contrast, etc). Not many folks are around anymore that have experience with all of this stuff. Folks have to specialize now.

Now, I just spend time upgrading our airstream and enjoying the adventures that are enabled by it along with spending time with family, grandkids, and friends.

Likely we crossed paths; all of those companies were customers of mine for sure, at some point. Applicon, Daisy Systems, Quickturn, Cadence, Synopsys, Aptix, AccelChip, Xilinx along the way. I remember using grease pencils for checking layouts blown up 10X or more. We used kneepads with these large LSI layouts on the floor, while someone would call out A1 to C3,4 etc. First DRC software from NCR followed by Daracula, which was developed by one of my Apps Engineers using an Applicon at a customer in San Jose at night. Cadence purchased that software; he became a millionaire and left the EDA field. Saw many startups come/go, like you...but I digress...life goes by so fast when you own an Airstream!

Just got back from a week in West Yellowstone Bakers Hole..heading back to TX second week in Sept. Likely take our time thru Capital Reef area again..hope the heat is down by then!

[DCPAS]

Originally Posted by DCPAS

Following up on my trip and comparing Verizon and T-Mobile. My trip to Billings was mostly US highways and some Interstate. Many places where neither had service, but there was only one area in the OK panhandle where Verizon had service but T-Mobile did not. When I tested speed, T-Mobile was always faster.

Just following up on my dual SIM Verizon / T-Mobile experience. When T-Mobile had a connection it was better except in downtown Billings. When we went west, Verizon usually had rather poor connections near Glacier NP and in Yellowstone NP while T-Mobile had nothing. So, reluctantly keeping Verizon for phone, but thinking about a T-Mobile hotspot.