Luray KOA, Virginia

[Neal]

AT&T Mobley Plan, 6 PM, Pepwave CAT 18 Max Transit with Parsec Husky antenna on top of front air conditioner (15ft cable run).

 

[Neal]

Verizon Prepaid Unlimited, 7 AM speed test

 

[lemondrop9344]

Neal,
Do you attribute the results to the external antenna, just good coverage by the providers, or, a combination of this & other factors?
I frequently see these types of speeds (same carriers with AT&T almost always faster) with my paddle antennas. As a result, I have yet to go through the effort of installing my external antenna. How difficult would it be to do the same test with the paddle antennas?
Yes, I know that is sort of a PITA & have no problem if your response is go 'pound sand'. Just trying to ascertain if I will realize significant improvement with the external antenna prior to putting a bunch of holes in my RV. Do you know the distance to & placement of the cellular towers?
Familiar with the topography around Luray, VA & it's considerably different than coastal NC. In your case, I would expect the cellular towers to be near the top of the mountain(s) & in my case, everything is relatively flat.
Thanks in advance for any consideration given this request, even if the response is 'pound sand'.

 

[Neal]

Neal,
Do you attribute the results to the external antenna, just good coverage by the providers, or, a combination of this & other factors?
I frequently see these types of speeds (same carriers with AT&T almost always faster) with my paddle antennas. As a result, I have yet to go through the effort of installing my external antenna. How difficult would it be to do the same test with the paddle antennas?
Yes, I know that is sort of a PITA & have no problem if your response is go 'pound sand'. Just trying to ascertain if I will realize significant improvement with the external antenna prior to putting a bunch of holes in my RV. Do you know the distance to & placement of the cellular towers?
Familiar with the topography around Luray, VA & it's considerably different than coastal NC. In your case, I would expect the cellular towers to be near the top of the mountain(s) & in my case, everything is relatively flat.
Thanks in advance for any consideration given this request, even if the response is 'pound sand'.

I attribute most to the Pepwave CAT 18, then the antenna on top of the A/C shroud. I'm sure I'd get good tests with paddle antennas as well but the Parsec's on the A/C shrouds are an ideal unobstructed 360 deg field of view location.

 

[MapNerd]

I just don’t get it. I have never ever gotten anything close to those speeds, anywhere in my travels. Sure, the MaxTransit Duo is only a CAT-12 but even so, no where close ever.

I think the best I have ever gotten was 60-70mbps but that is extremely rare for me.

Usually I am quite happy if I can manage to pull down 30.

Is there something specific to your configuration?

 

[Neal]

Is there something specific to your configuration?

No, don't think so. Pretty stock setup. These are actually mediocre speeds, AT&T has been pretty stable up around 180 down. I think this is CAT 18 and good antenna position. Probably better with a shorter cable vs. 15ft.

 

[lemondrop9344]

MapNerd,
I found the following information available on line which might help explain the issue. Granted, these speeds are most likely laboratory speeds under conditions that we as mere mortals will never see in the real world. On the surface, the CAT 18 appears to be almost twice as fast as the CAT 12 when measuring down load speeds. Of course that assumes this information is legitimate.
I suspect the User Interface on the MT Duo is a little different than what Neal & I are using with the CAT 18. I am still trying to figure out what all I can do with the CAT-18 with its single modem with carrier aggregation, multiple bands, etc, etc, etc. Do you have the ability to combine bandwidth from 2 different carriers with the DUO?

Hi. So cat 12 has a max of 603 Mbps download and 102 Mbps upload with carrier aggregation across 2 or 4 channels. Cat 18 is 1174Gbps download with CA across 2,4 or 8 channels (typically paired with a cat13 module for ~150Mbps upload. Cat12 modem modules are available and good value.May 10, 2019

 

[MapNerd]

I suspect the User Interface on the MT Duo is a little different than what Neal & I are using with the CAT 18.

The UI is identical except I have two modems that I can move into Priority 1, in which case their “Load Balancing” is just a round-robin that alternates each request between the two modems (that’s not load balancing and Pepwave shouldn’t call it that)

I am still trying to figure out what all I can do with the CAT-18 with its single modem with carrier aggregation, multiple bands, etc, etc, etc. Do you have the ability to combine bandwidth from 2 different carriers with the DUO?

Supposedly, if I use their SpeedFusion VPN, this is possible but the bandwidth costs for that are prohibitive. So I’ve not done it.

I just test to the speeds of each modem and whomever is faster at a given location , I put into Priority 1 and the other goes into Priority 2.

I think I might have to just buy a CAT-18 and see if it makes a difference. If not I will just return it.

 

[Neal]

Verizon prepaid at 6:30 PM with TTL 65

 

[lemondrop9344]

MapNerd,
Some interesting historical discussions (2019 time frame & later) re: CAT-6, CAT-12 & CAT-18 devices on this forum as well as the Peplink forum. You can draw your own conclusions if you care to read them.
With regards to SpeedFusion VPN................. I provide IT support (such as it is) for my son's business. We both have NAS devices where I back I up his business data from his NAS to my NAS on the RV & vice versa. In order for the NAS devices to work the way I wanted them to, I had to use SpeedFusion with VPN.
We migrated the home office to Peplink products when the CISCO stuff finally failed. There is no additional charge for this single connection.
Aside from the fact that it's free, it works reliably & I was surprised how fast the initial backup was accomplished (a couple of terabytes of data) & the incremental backups (run at night) normally take just a few minutes. They (Synology &/or Peplink) must be using some sort of compression algorithm that dramatically reduces the size of the backup data. No way do I have data plans that would allow a TB of data in a month, let alone over night.
SpeedFusion VPN works really well in my case,
Speed tests are always an interesting exercise.

Verizon prepaid at 6:30 PM with TTL 65

View attachment 9801

Neal,
Aside from the download & upload speeds reflected in the screen shot, would you be able to provide a few more details on what we are actually looking at?

Based on some of your previous posts, it's my understanding you have 2 CAT-18's installed on the RV. Are they bonded in anyway to enhance (bonding?) the available bandwidth?​

As I look at this, it suggests you are using multiple signal sources which are managed by the CAT-18(s). One cellular signal from an ATT&T sim card & a WIFI signal broadcast from your iPhone which utilizes the Verizon network? Assuming that is close to a correct assumption, I assume they are both designated as priority 1 on the CAT-18(s). Would you be so kind as to confirm or correct my assumption(s)?​

With regards to the WIFI connection coming from the iPhone; I assume it has 5G capability. Can you ascertain if the Verizon signal it's receiving is a 4G LTE signal or one of the 5G signals offered by Verizon?​

Again, assuming my assumptions are close to what you are doing, is it possible to determine how much incremental speed can be attribute to the WIFI signal?​

I have a strong RV park WIFI signal. From time to time I've designated my AT&T connection & the 5ghz WIFI RV park connection as priority 1 to see if I could increase the results achieved in a speed test. To date, I've not been able to see any difference with that configuration. I'm now considering using my cell phone in a fashion similar to your set up to see if that makes a difference. If it does, it may be time to upgrade the phone to 5G capability.
You come up with some interesting stuff! Thanks for giving us the incentive to try different things.

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