Technomadia

We keep a constantly updated list of the best data plans for a 'home internet replacement' (including unlimited options) here: www.rvmobileinternet.com/planpicks There are several unlimited AT&T vendors out there, most of them without authorized relationships with AT&T. Many of the $60/month range ones are just reselling the unlimited tablet plan that you can get yourself for $34.99.month. AT&T does currently have a legit unlimited data plan specifically for RVers for $360/year - it's only available to Airstream owners, or when using the Togo Roadlink C2 roof top unit. You'll find more info on these options in the link above. The Mobley only resurfaced for a brief bit earlier this year, and we don't anticipate it coming back again. But then again, it was a surprise it came back earlier this year too. - Cherie

Our guide to cellular booster registration: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/guides/booster-registration/ Basically, while it's a requirement - there's been hardly any enforcement of it.

Yes, very exciting to see SpaceX make their claim in this space. We were actually on the press conference with Elon prior to the launch, and shared in our write-up the outlook for mobility in terms of RV use: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/spacex-launches-first-sixty-starlink-satellites-building-a-massive-global-broadband-constellation/

Here's our full guide to understanding the limits on "unlimited" plans: http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/unlimited basics: Network management is temporary and just lowering your priority on a tower as the carrier needs to do manage their traffic. Throttling is a hard cap and a set max speed.

When added to Beyond, Above or the original 'February 2017 New' Unlimited postpaid smartphones planes - Jetpacks are $20/month. And it only includes 15GB of high speed mobile hotspot use, then hard throttled to 600 kbps speeds. This about to be retired prepaid plan does not have such caps, but is always subject to network management.

By the way.. it is now confirmed. This plan IS retiring on May 21, and existing customers will be grandfathered in. Above article has been updated.

We have indications that this plan may soon be retiring - if you're interested in this plan, we recommend getting it activated ASAP just in case: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/verizon-prepaid-65-month-unlimited-jetpack-data-plan-pudp-retiring-soon/

The Connected Car plan sold with the Mobley does not include any international roaming. It's US only. We actually just updated our guide to mobile internet options in Canada for US based nomads: http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/canada

We would be happy to reply there - however, their forums seem to not be allowing us to - whether by design or technical error. All I get is an error message about too many redirects when attempting to do so. I see that Neal is now claiming that because we happen to cover the same equipment that Turbopilot is recommending that we should be crediting him and/or IRV2. We always credit our sources.. and simply put, neither IRV2 or Turbopilot is the original source of our knowledge of these devices, or their pairing. And Turbopilot's experience (as with all our member's sharing) with the devices is shared & searchable in our forums and clearly credited to his name. We've had these router models in testing for years, and have covered them with information we've obtained direct from the manufacturers and based on our own hands on experience with them. The antenna pairing is actually what Airstream is including in their new dealer installed kit, which is how it originally came on our radar - and followed-up with working with the folks at LivinLite.net to obtain further technical specifications, feedback from the manufacturer and evaluation samples. The particular pairing is nothing particularly unique, nor original by Turbopilot or us (we clearly credit Airstream and LivinLite in our coverage where appropriate.) And we attempt to cover ALL options out there - with a focus on selecting what will best meet YOUR needs. - Cherie

Thank you all for the support on this. It was kinda shocking to us to see an accusation of plagiarism in the thread. We do all of our independent research, testing and writing - and if we are referencing someone else's content, we always give credit where credit is due. We actually reached out to the original poster of the thread, who is actually one of our premium members whom we helped in our own forums. Prior to him him joining our site earlier this year, we had no knowledge of him - and prior to today we had not tracked his postings anywhere outside of our own. He told us he had actually posted in the thread with a link and recommendation to us - but it was deleted by a moderator. *shrug* We ourselves long ago quit even attempting to assist on the IRV2 forums because of the extreme moderation. We so appreciate our Escapee's & Xscapers community.

You've received some great advice here... just to confirm some things for you: 1) The 8800L issues are not yet resolved, but we are testing a 2nd beta unit Inseego sent us. Things are looking better, but it's no telling how long it will take Verizon to push the firmware update. That said, many are not having issues, and the 8800L is the flagship device with the most future proofing. 5G for us mobile travelers won't be a consideration for quite a while. For more on the 8800L: http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/8800l 2) The 7730l is still a relevant device however, and many are choosing to obtain one instead. 3) 3G is currently slated to be ended by Verizon at the end of this year. While it might be important now, it won't be for much longer. Here's our guide tracking the technology paths of each carrier, including their 3G shut downs and 5G roll outs: http://rvmobileinternet.com/evolution

It is true that the prepaid tablet plans 'just work' in hotspots. And you are correct that it's not within terms of service - sounds like you are going in eyes wide open on that. As far as hotspots... the most current model on the AT&T network is the Netgear Nighthawk (our overview of it). But what is best for you really depends no what your criteria is for 'best'. Here's also our guide to understanding LTE modem spec so you can learn more: LTE Modem Specs. - Cherie

We've been tracking these ongoing issues with the prepaid plans - and they seem related to the recent enforcement of the 720p video throttling. Some older accounts (ie. started before the end of last year) are most prone to these drop-outs. The recommended fix at present time seems to be having Verizon activate you a new line of service. Here's our article tracking the issue, with some other possible solutions: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/reported-issues-verizon-prepaid-unlimited-jetpack-plans-acting-wonky/

We just picked up the Ellipsis for head to head comparisons - but on paper, the specs are like comparing a basic low car to a high end luxury vehicle. Will a basic car get you there? Sure. Is a luxury vehicle worth the extra expense for you? Only you can answer that. For anyone who relies on mobile internet, I'd say it's absolutely worth it.

Novatel/Inseego has always called them test ports - and they in fact work as antenna ports. A MIMO configured antenna is better, but two single antennas can be utilized as what we call 'mock-MIMO'. However, keep in mind the 8800L has internal 4x4 MIMO, which in many cases may outperform external 2x2 MIMO. So with this one, it's best to test at each location for what is optimal. For our guide to antennas available: www.rvmobileinternet.com/cellularantennas

There actually is a MAJOR difference between the pre-November unlimited prepaid plan and the new prepaid plan for smartphones. On the old plan you got unlimited hotspot at 600 kbps. On the new plan, you get none.

This plan is brand new as of Nov 6 - and in fact, we stumbled on it even before Verizon's own press release came out later that day announcing the general prepaid plan overhauls. And even their press release (and The Verge article you linked to, which is based on that release) made absolutely no mention of this $65/month Jetpack plan without any hard data caps. To date, we've not seen another source cover this plan that isn't referencing our article on it. So I'm not sure how you could have been sharing about this specific plan 'for a while'. Maybe you're thinking of past prepaid plans? - Cherie

Indeed, MyVerizon is showing a 720p cap. However the advertised cap is 1080p on Verizon's prepaid website and FAQs ("Video streams up to 480p for smartphones and 1080p for tablets and Jetpacks."), and in our extensive testing over the past couple of weeks we have confirmed we are actually getting 1080p when using Netflix's test pattern videos. When doing a speedtest on fast.com (which is Netflix's speed test service, which uses a video file for testing - so you can see any video throttling in place) - we regularly get results between 8-10 mbps. Which is plenty for 1080p, but not 4K. For comparison, when testing on other speed test services - our speeds are consistently 30-40 mbps down. We have an inquiry into Verizon corporate as to why 720p is showing in MyVerizon. We suspect it's an artifact of their past prepaid plans or smartphone lines. - Cherie

Here's our overview of the 8800L - http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/8800l Once we have some more hands on time with it, our members will be getting some head-to-head real world comparisons to past Jetpack models.

At present time, they continue to allow it.

Thanks for sharing our post about this new offering from Verizon. Indeed quite exciting to finally see an unlimited hotspot data plan with no data caps. We've been running ours since Tuesday without problems, and it's comparing favorably to our grandfathered postpaid Verizon unlimited plan in terms of speed and reliability (at our current location). However, we don't recommend ditching a sweet grandfathered in plan for this one. Especially the gUDP from Verizon - the postpaid perks, no throttling and no network management still make those plans appealing. And if you've set your gUDP up for optimal hotspot pricing, you're likely paying $45 or $65 a month for it anyway - cheaper or same price as this new prepaid plan. We're keeping our gUDP for as long as Verizon allows it. Oh, and if you missed the news - Verizon has a brand new 8800L hotspot out. So if you're purchasing a new Jetpack for this plan, it might be worth the extra step to get it (not officially sold for prepaid, but many are able to get them anyway.) It has some impressive specs. We just got ours in for testing & review. - Cherie

Thanks Al F .. appreciate the shout out. We've done a lot of extensive field testing with various boosters & antenna combos, M2M and MIMO configurations over the years. The simple answer is.. each signal location is unique, and there's no one-size fits all best option. Here's our full guide to Understanding Cellular Signal and Data Performance: http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/cellsignal And of course equally important is the data plans you can acquire to go along with your preferred gear that best meet your needs. All stuff we cover daily over on the Mobile Internet Resource Center. - Cherie

I'm a bit confused as to what possible issue weBoost support might be referring to. We use our iPhones very successfully with boosters all the time, and have never had any problems unique to an iPhone before. Just last night we started gathering data for our next round of booster and antenna testing for RVMobileInternet.com - among other tests, we'll be putting the Max-Amp Mobile and the weBoost Drive 4G-X head-to-head. Here's just one example data point showing the sort of impact we were seeing with our iPhone 6S on AT&T: With no booster: -119dB LTE Band 12 - 1 bar displayed - 4.57Mbps download speed, 0.04Mbps upload speed. Very unreliable connection. Turning on the weBoost Drive 4G-X: -67dB LTE Band 12 - 5 bars displayed - 35.73Mbps download speed, 12.70Mbps upload speed. Rock solid connection. In this particular test scenario we had the iPhone right on top of the indoor patch antenna, but we've also been testing at various distances from the indoor antenna too. Overall - without a booster and/or external antenna AT&T was borderline unusable where we are at. And with a booster, the connection was fast and glorious. If you are not seeing any impact at all, I can only guess that you must have gotten a defective device. Don't let weBoost support pin the blame on your phone! Cheers, - Chris

To view the signal strength in dBs instead of bars on an iOS device (such as an iPhone), you have to force the device into 'field test' mode. We have that procedure documented here: Field Test Mode: db Signal Strength vs Bars