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Old 03-03-2019, 08:37 AM   #101
dst
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Quote:
Originally Posted by turk123 View Post
I just did some research on the Mobile Internet Resource Center and found quite a bit of information about the peplink.

One thing is clear. When WiFi as WAN (campground feature) is turned on as is from the factory, The cell internet bandwidth will take a HUGE hit. The processor is running not only the local area network but this new outside network from the campground. It has shown to be overwhelmed by the load. The findings are clear. To get fast speeds with the cell internet, you have to turn WiFi as WAN off in the router. Airstream has to do it.

Also, Peplink WiFi speeds are very slow. The wireless radio is a single band and can only do 2ghz. I'm looking into something called "health mode" that may be monitoring the signal and may cause interruptions on a 6-second cycle hence the timeouts I've been plagued with.

Plugging in the second wireless router bypasses the inferior Peplink WiFi radio. It also allows you to use the newer 5ghz dual-band routers and gives you a platform that is unlocked.
Wi-Fi is half duplex, it cannot talk and listen at the same time. When you use the campground Wi-Fi mode you are basically turning the device into a repeater. It has to listen to campground system, transmit to you, listen from you, then transmit to campground system. Since it only has a 2.4 Ghz radio this all happens on the same channel.

My pepwave soho has 2.4 and 5 radios. I connect everything on the trailer to the 5, so when I use the campground Wi-Fi I don't see a big hit. But campground Wi-Fi usually slower than my tethered hotspot. So adding an external access point, especially with a 5 ghz radio, also solved the issue.

And if the router, or campground systems, use any channels other than 1, 6, or 11 things only get worse. This are the only 2.4 ghz channels that don't overlap (interfere) with each other.
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Old 03-03-2019, 08:41 AM   #102
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Keep it simple.
95 percent of the time campground wifi, when it even exists, is a total waste of time. Just turn that feature off and move on.
If you’re lucky enough to camp somewhere with actual good wifi, just use it and don’t waste time repeating it via this system.
Follow this method, grasshopper, and life becomes so much easier.
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Old 03-03-2019, 09:18 PM   #103
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Originally Posted by Rocinante View Post
Keep it simple.
95 percent of the time campground wifi, when it even exists, is a total waste of time. Just turn that feature off and move on.
If you’re lucky enough to camp somewhere with actual good wifi, just use it and don’t waste time repeating it via this system.
Follow this method, grasshopper, and life becomes so much easier.
Exactly right! In all my travels I have never found campground wifi worth its salt. Shutting this feature off is well worth the effort and you never have to look back.

When you do finally have quality WiFi, you will be hacked and give up your online banking information to someone in the trailer next to you.

When I was in Florida I had someone steal my Mac Address and who knows what else until the campground moved in and cut him off. Most campgrounds don't even manage this! Just shut WiFi as Wan OFF.
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Old 03-03-2019, 09:35 PM   #104
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I want to clarify something. I was told that the Peplink modem had two simms and two accounts. One to control the czone and one for the WiFi. That is NOT correct. There is only one account. One WiFi channel. The second sim I believe is just a registration for the Czone account. Without the sim you will not be able to access the controls of the Czone system.

The reason I know this is that the Peplink modem is not capable of switching between the two sims. Without that capability, Peplink cannot have two channels or accounts running the system. So the Czone connect system is running under the same modem account as your ATT account. The reason why it works so well is that the Czone system is plugged into one of the two Ethernet ports on the Peplink modem. That gives it a solid connection. That is why when you add a second router to the system and plug it into the Other Ethernet port that it works so well.

Why Airstream will not admit that a second router will solve all the issues is beyond me. Especially when they are actually using the same Ethernet port to make their "Connect" system work so well. I will be pressing them on this issue very soon.
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Old 03-04-2019, 02:03 AM   #105
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Originally Posted by turk123 View Post
. . .
When you do finally have quality WiFi, you will be hacked and give up your online banking information to someone in the trailer next to you.

When I was in Florida I had someone steal my Mac Address and who knows what else until the campground moved in and cut him off. Most campgrounds don't even manage this! Just shut WiFi as Wan OFF.
[ . . . A little OT maybe . . . ]

If someone needs a secure connection to prevent hacking and fraud, as happened to you, is a regular LTE cell connection [5G coming relatively soon] a good path to take? Sure, you can't stream movies etc. on this connection without high data costs, but for brief banking etc. sessions, doesn't it make sense to go this route, to avoid hacking? Just skip WIFI altogether?

I am thinking of Verizon's Jetpack and similar packages.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Peter

PS -- FYI and FWIW -- Just noticed this thread is active again with similar issues:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f451...tv-189713.html

FYI/FWIW
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Old 03-04-2019, 05:35 AM   #106
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If someone needs a secure connection to prevent hacking and fraud, as happened to you, is a regular LTE cell connection [5G coming relatively soon] a good path to take? Sure, you can't stream movies etc. on this connection without high data costs, but for brief banking etc. sessions, doesn't it make sense to go this route, to avoid hacking? Just skip WIFI altogether?

I am thinking of Verizon's Jetpack and similar packages.
The weakest link in that chain is the wifi connection to the hotspot. USB tethering would in theory be safest. But yes, a well-configured wifi to a personal hotspot would be a better route to go than most public or semi-private connections, which are often not secure and to which many people have access.
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Old 03-04-2019, 06:20 AM   #107
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If you use a VPN, you're reasonably safe on a campground wifi connection, but again - campground wifi is almost never worth the trouble. Just. Not. In all our years of RV-ing, we've seen only one or two private campgrounds with wifi that was worth the effort. Not one public campground - in fact we've yet to see a public campground with any wifi at all.

This is why we've never understood the attraction of solutions that focus on improving one's ability to connect to campground wifi. It's like improving the chances of a garbage truck dumping a load into the back of your tow vehicle. What's the point?
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Old 03-08-2019, 02:23 PM   #108
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I'll appologize ahead of time for the stupid question. Can the system be used while towing? It would be nice to use the Airstream's data plan while we're traveling.
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Old 03-08-2019, 02:42 PM   #109
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Not a dumb question at all IMO.

Another one -- does this plan kick you into a better overall data environment, which benefits your general cell phone use, when not near or using the AS for camping?

The devil is in the details IMO.

Peter
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Old 03-08-2019, 07:15 PM   #110
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The modem/router being used is not a 'cell booster' so won't help boosting your cellphone audio calling while moving or stationary. However you might be able to use it for data usage while driving if you can connect to it from the tow vehicle.
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Old 03-09-2019, 05:36 AM   #111
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I want to clarify something. I was told that the Peplink modem had two simms and two accounts. One to control the czone and one for the WiFi. That is NOT correct. There is only one account. One WiFi channel. The second sim I believe is just a registration for the Czone account. Without the sim you will not be able to access the controls of the Czone system.

The reason I know this is that the Peplink modem is not capable of switching between the two sims. Without that capability, Peplink cannot have two channels or accounts running the system. So the Czone connect system is running under the same modem account as your ATT account. The reason why it works so well is that the Czone system is plugged into one of the two Ethernet ports on the Peplink modem. That gives it a solid connection. That is why when you add a second router to the system and plug it into the Other Ethernet port that it works so well.

Why Airstream will not admit that a second router will solve all the issues is beyond me. Especially when they are actually using the same Ethernet port to make their "Connect" system work so well. I will be pressing them on this issue very soon.
I'm learning every day! I received a call from Dan at Airstream and as we talked about the Connect system he wanted to make clear how they have approached this. I was wrong. The second SIM is functional. It has an Airstream account. He referred to it as a "white card". It provides a low functioning account to allow the trailer to operate under the connect system (Czone) and allows access to the trailers functions. It is turned on when the trailer is delivered but gets replaced by the ATT account when a customer signs up. That way if a customer decides to NOT get the ATT account or turns off the account, he can still access the trailer with the Airstream ap. The SIM has a very low data rate associated with it as only text files are transmitted for control.

This really makes sense and is a high-end approach and commitment by Airstream to make the user experience a good one. This also renews my feeling that Airstream has spent a lot of time on developing this.
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Old 03-09-2019, 05:48 AM   #112
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocinante View Post
If you use a VPN, you're reasonably safe on a campground wifi connection, but again - campground wifi is almost never worth the trouble. Just. Not. In all our years of RV-ing, we've seen only one or two private campgrounds with wifi that was worth the effort. Not one public campground - in fact we've yet to see a public campground with any wifi at all.

This is why we've never understood the attraction of solutions that focus on improving one's ability to connect to campground wifi. It's like improving the chances of a garbage truck dumping a load into the back of your tow vehicle. What's the point?
Again I agree. There may be situations (like my friend's) that this feature is useful, but 99% of the time, it just gets in the way of the cell side of WiFi. I believe a better approach would be to make the WiFi as Wan optional and turned off as the default. When a customer calls support about getting WiFi from the campground, turn it on for him. Why this works so well is that Airstream will never receive that call.
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Old 03-09-2019, 03:11 PM   #113
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Originally Posted by turk123 View Post
Again I agree. There may be situations (like my friend's) that this feature is useful, but 99% of the time, it just gets in the way of the cell side of WiFi. I believe a better approach would be to make the WiFi as Wan optional and turned off as the default. When a customer calls support about getting WiFi from the campground, turn it on for him. Why this works so well is that Airstream will never receive that call.


Have to say I agree with your logic of having wan turned off as default. Really doesn’t make sense to have wan turned “on” as a default when you have unlimited data plan.
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Old 03-15-2019, 07:33 PM   #114
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Peplink flaw / the answer, finally!

I have the answer for you! In a discussion on the Mobile internet Resource center and gentleman chimed in a few minutes ago with the reason why the Wifi WAN seems to work in a campground with good wifi and in my case, with no WIFI, it interfered with the Cell side.

This is the documented proof that the Peplink has a flaw in the way it handles the "campground" feature. Without control over the Peplink modem, we cannot turn the feature off. This is also the reason why everyone should have Airstream turn off the feature.

I will let him explain:

Peplink does have one big flaw with their WiFi Wan and I have brought this up before with Peplink when I discovered it on my SOHO over a year ago.

When WiFi wan is enabled but it cannot find a network to connect to it will scan for one every few seconds, in order to scan the radio goes into promiscuous mode for a short time. During the scan it cannot serve LAN traffic, this ends up causing about 10% packet loss.

On a Peplink you must be able to disable WiFi wan if not connected to a network. I use their iOS app to do so before leaving a campground.

they could improve the situation by changing the scan interval to minutes rather than seconds, or better yet have a setting to adjust which I believe Cradlepoint does.

Dual radios is the best of course. In the airstream they should have paired with a indoor access point due to metal skin.

This is what the packet loss looks like, the first half is with WiFi WAN enabled but no network found and scanning, the second half is WiFi WAN disabled:
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Old 03-15-2019, 07:41 PM   #115
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I did not reveal the name of the gentleman who gave me the data as I have not spoken to him yet. I'm sure it will be fine but I just want to be sure. I am not taking credit for his finding!

When testing the peplink using my Google home, I discovered a "pulsing" dropout where the home would disappear every 2 seconds. This explains the pattern. It made no sense at the time but makes a lot of sense now. I believe I talked about it here when it happened in the other thread "Flight of the Airstreamer".
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Old 03-16-2019, 08:43 PM   #116
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Thanks for the info Turk! This is good to know. I’m not a tech expert but this seems logical and pretty easy to follow along.
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Old 03-17-2019, 08:49 AM   #117
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Here is a bit of more information:

Just want to make this clear there is no real firmware fix, there is simply no way around the scanning issue with a single radio no matter who makes it. The problem is Peplink decided that scanning every few seconds was a good setting, and honestly I see no reason why, if your wifi network goes down then comes back it will connect back quickly but meanwhile your getting significant packet loss while its not there, if it where say a minute between scans yes you would lose a few packets once a minute, probably never notice and your wifi network reconnects a minute slower big deal. Better yet be able to adjust, go to 5 minutes or 10.

Really though Airstream made a poor design decision regardless IMHO, even without the scan issue they should have added an internal WIFi AP to account for the metal skin especially for the price tag.


Although the antenna is outside, the signal is very strong inside. I think Airstream made the right decision as we do spend a lot of time outside our trailer.
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Old 03-17-2019, 09:13 AM   #118
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Airstream made the decision to go with the single band radio probably because someone at Frontier Computing or Peplink said this would work for them. Airstream found out later that they had a problem. They now are committed to the product now and are looking for a workaround. JH said, there is no fix and no way around the scanning issue. Increasing the interval will improve it though.

Airstream is certainly looking at new equipment for the future. A dual band modem such as the new Peplink BR1 mk2 would be a better choice. It is not just that it has both 2GHZ & 5 GHz frequencies, but that in the router firmware you can prioritize which channel is used by the Cell side and the campground wifi side. 2GHz travels further and is perfect for campground WiFi. The 5GHz in or near the trailer will double the speed. By using two radios you don't have the problem of "searching" that they have now. If Airstream would have known the issues up front (and they did not), I bet they would have opted for the dual band.

I believe they should address this, especially with new dealer installs. The Br1 Mk2 is $200 more in price. Since it would not involve the Czone system technology, it could be incorporated pretty easily in an existing trailer.
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Old 03-18-2019, 10:11 AM   #119
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A little birdie told me that Colonial is using a price of $2000 for the Connect system and install. Watch for others to follow.
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Old 03-18-2019, 11:03 AM   #120
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New “Airstream Connected” LTE-WiFi Dealer Installed

In the end I decided not to move forward with the Airstream Connect plan / peplink equipment. The largest attraction by far was the AT&T plan itself - unlimited data, no throttling and no network management. The trifecta unicorn!

The downside was the mandated hardware and installation, and locked out BR1 Mk2. (I really just wanted access to the plan / SIM card so I could deploy hardware of my choosing).

I ended up moving forward with the Verizon Pre-paid plan with unlimited data, no throttling, but has network management at all times. The hardware is the current generation inseego 8800L - manufactured jetpack, a category 18 LTE device with 4x4 internal MIMO antennas and ability to plug into an external 2x2 MIMO antenna. For the exterior antenna I am using a netgear directional 2x2 MIMO based on the recommendations and testing at rvmobileinternet.com (rather than omni-directional roof-mount MIMO) that I can manually aim at the tower and then stick to the window accordingly.

For secure LAN and WIFI-WAN functions I am using my existing pepwave SOHO MKIII router with 3x3 WiFi MIMO antennas which is fixed to the front window of my unit behind the curtain. I can tether the jetpack via USB or use WIFI-WAN to connect, depending on where it is located in the trailer.

This Jetpack is latest generation LTE wireless hardware, supports an incredible range of cellular bands, carrier aggregation, 5Ghz wifi and supports theoretical wireless speeds in excess of 1 Gb/s.

Thus far, I have been very pleased with the throughput and speed, and I have not seen network management come into play as of yet, after 2 weeks of testing. I have used about 30 gigs of data thus far testing, including streaming of 5 simultaneous HD screens.

Total hardware investment was $250 after taxes (not including my SOHO which I already had, and bought used for $120), and the Verizon plan was $65/month.

In the event I cannot get signal via the Jetpack (using internal or external antennas), I have a fixed Weebost in the trailer with omni-directional exterior antenna that can be leveraged if needed.
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