I have been using a Cradlepoint MBR95 for a couple years.  It works, but the SOHO has some improvements I wanted.  Improvement #1 is that it supports the Pantech 291 hotspot tethered via USB, while the MBR95 can only use it via "WiFi a WAN".  Improvement #2 is with the optional external antennas, which I bought, the SOHO can pull in WiFi's much better.  But, I was also expecting improvements in other areas and am disappointed.  

The MBR95 treats each connection as unique, so each WiFi it can pull in is treated as a separate connection.  The SOHO does not do this, for much of the information it saves only at the connection level, so only Ethernet, USB and WiFi as WAN are counted.  With the MBR95 I can manage as many connections for fail through, etc., as exist, I can have 5 WiFi's, along with two USB modems, and Ethernet and order them how I please.  They do not need to be plugged or available to remember. The SOHO can manage the order of Ethernet, USB and WiFi, three levels.   This is a real limitation.  

I was also expecting better bandwidth reporting and management.  Jack Mayer seemed to think it was better.  In some ways it is, mostly in detailed numbers, but the MBR95 is better for me here.  The SOHO only supports bandwidth limits on a monthly basis on Ethernet, USB and WiFi, the MBR95 can do daily and weekly on any connection.  I deal with campground WiFi that uses daily or 12 hour limits, plus satellite internet can be on daily or weekly limits.  I have two USB connections, Millenicom and AT&T, with different limits and days of the month they reset.  The SOHO can't handle it and manage them.  I am at a campground that limits me to 500MB per 12 hours on WiFi, with the MBR95 it would hit the limit and move to my Millenicom or AT&T connection, and there is no way to do that with the SOHO since the WiFi still works at a slower speed.  

I am also spoiled by how fast the MBR95 starts up and changes configuration than the SOHO.  The SOHO takes a very long time to wake up or change its configurations.  I won't complain about the MBR95 startup any more, it is more like 3 minutes instead of over 10 minutes for the SOHO.

Cradlepoint and their cross town competitor WiFiRanger are designed more for mobile people.  The SOHO feels like it is designed for a fixed installation, where the connections do not change often.  

At present I am not that impressed and am unhappy I spent the money for the SOHO.  If I was not used to what the MBR95 could do I might not be so unhappy.  

The Pepwave does fail over nicely. The campground Wifi went slow and it switched to the Millenicom hotspot. The MBR95 doesn't always do so since the way it checks if an internet source is still good are kind of weak. I can tell when it switches to Millenicom, since it is much faster. But the campground Wifi, Centurylink via Tengo, is quite usable. I suspect WiFiRanger modems work really well with Tengo, since they are both from the same corporate parent.

I am also perceiving faster WiFi as WAN performance. I suspect this is because of the higher power of the SOHO external antennas.

It all boils down to what do you want in a router? Most of these capabilities were not in reasonably priced routers a few years back, fail over, bandwidth monitoring, WiFi as WAN, and only a few handled USB modems and tethering. We mostly got by fine. I am spoiled by the way the MBR95 handles internet connections and bandwidth monitoring. In many ways I can see that the Pepwave is a very good router and if I started with it, I would probably be happy.

I also have a Pepwave Surf Mini to pull in weaker WiFi signals, it is a WiFi adapter that ends in Ethernet. It has been sufficient when I needed to boost a WiFi signal to feed the MBR95. Without it, I would be less happy with the MBR95, since it does not pull in WiFis that well on its own. I look forward to doing a head to head with the Pepwave Surf SOHO's larger antennas and see if it does a better job. But, I need to be somewhere I will be boosting a weak signal and that will not be for a while, probably September.

Bill,

I am not sure if I fully understand but it looks like you are able to grab a wi-fi signal with the Cradlepoint MBR95 router is that correct? I am looking to hook-up a router so I can connect my Midnite Solar Classic 150 charge controller to the net so I can monitor it both from my laptop and remotely on my Android phone. As with many fulltimers I do not have a hardwired internet connection and use either the campground's or my Verizon Mi-Fi to access the internet. Since the Classic is not wi-fi ready it needs to be plugged via Ethernet to a router in order to communicate.

I have been asking on both the Midnite forum and Buffalo's Forum have not got a solid answer. I did see a Buffalo AC1750 DD-WRT router and was not sure if this did the same thing.

Thanks Bill. Sounds like a winner. I did correspond with Cradlepoint's tech support and they said that you the wi-fi or jetpack cannot have a password to communicate with the Cradlepoint. Do you if this is the case? What about the Pepwave, will it access a password protected wi-fi or jetpack?

I think you are right Bill, I went thru the manual and it does say under the WAN area that it will take a password so it is a winner.

Thanks for your insight, it has change the game for me.

Today I tried to hook the SOHO up to the campground wifi and it did not work. The wifi is open, but uses a username/password once you get on. The SOHO ended up with a "server error". I got out my old Pepwave Surf Mini and got online using a laptop, it was able to get online. The Mini is an external wifi adapter that uses Ethernet instead of USB to hook to the computer. I hooked the Mini up to the LAN port of the SOHO and got error lights. Then in dawned on me that unlike most modern routers, the SOHO does not allow non-crossover Ethernet cables. I dug around, found a crossover Ethernet cable and voila, I had internet via the Mini as a LAN.

Most people do not have crossover cables, but I do. To determine if you have a crossover cable, look at both ends and if the wire colors are in different order, it is a crossover cable, a standard Ethernet cable has the wires in the same order on both ends. For most people it is dangerous to have a crossover cable laying around, if they use it without realizing it is different it won't work in most cases.

The only problem is I now cannot get to the SOHO admin page, probably because the subnet mask got set to block it. Verizon and AT&T are much faster than the campground wifi, which is from Frontier, so I will be going back to my Millenicom service. But, I will be keeping the Mini and might set it up using another router so I can switch to it by changing which wifi I use. I have a couple normal routers, the kind you use in a house, and two Cradlepoint ones, an MBR1000 and an MBR95.

Edit: My old Netgear router didn't care that I was using a crossover cable with the Mini, even though the last time I used a normal Ethernet cable.  It is working fine as a second wifi, repeating the campground wifi.