WiFiRanger Intelligent Mobile Router Hands-On Review - RV-Dreams Community Forum

3Gstore_Matt · RV-Dreams Family Member

WiFiRanger Intelligent Mobile Router Hands-On Review

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, Matt, seems like there is a bit of problem you have discovered and pointed out in your fine review. Maybe Jack will have some comments but this “problem” is a show stopper for us if I am correct.

The Ranger doesn’t have good old WEP compatibility as noted in you “Wish it had list.” As I have sort of harped on for some time, a lot of the campgrounds we visited last fall and winter have WEP and 10 ASCII character passwords. (Not the 5 and 13 which are admittedly standard.) In traveling the US last fall we had at least 10 campgrounds with WEP and that was in the US. If you don’t have an air-card connection you need the campground WiFi. Regardless of the fact that WEP is a terrible standard, security wise, it still has a very large installed base based on our experience. In fact we’re in route to one right now with only WEP and10 ASCII character p/w. So with that in mind, I think we have a issue that is worth discussing with the manufacture.

From your review:

What we wish it had:

Signal % or RSSI for 3G/4G modems (control panel shows signal bars only)
Failback (the router will failover to your secondary connections if the primary connection fails, but it will not failback to the primary one when it comes back online)
Support for WiMAX modems
WEP compatibility

(Yes, using a “Bullet” CPE I think you can get around this problem. However, I believe the Ranger, which is billed as a pretty universal central control point / router, should handle this legacy security standard internally if the user does not want to go to an external CPE, etc.)

If I have misinterpreted anything about this, my apologies and I will stand corrected.

Thanks for the help and review.

Bill

3Gstore_Matt · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill and Linda,

Correct, we've had some issues getting the ranger to associate correctly with WEP security. I agree that there are still quite a few places that use WEP security but more and more are migrating to WPA as they found out how inferior WEP security actually is.

I'll be sure to keep you updated as we submit new requests and features for the Ranger.

-- Edited by 3Gstore_Matt on Thursday 17th of March 2011 04:16:23 PM

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

To all that view this posting, if you are interested in the Wi-Fi Ranger, keep your money in your wallet for a bit longer. This unit is still in its Beta testing phase and while it works "OK" in most situations it is absolutely not ready for prime time. It's going to be a very good product and I believe that it will be very soon, but as of today you have to understand that all of the promised features may not work to your complete satisfaction and you may have to so some software updates over the next few weeks/months to get the full benefit of this router.
We have been a Beta tester for this (soon to be) great product since December of last year and we have great expectations for it. I can't recommend it to anyone "today" unless you like playing on the cutting edge but it will be really good, really soon.

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Matt:

Thank you very much for staying on top of this product. I agree with Bill's comments above in all regards including that it will be a great product-but not yet. However, I don’t agree that campgrounds are worried about “security” and will upgrade unless they are forced to. They get no revenue to speak of (for the most part) from WiFi and many are on thin profit lines. So while WEP is not very good, to implement in the Ranger would be so easy and make the product “complete” for those in the RV world. That is one of its major markets and there will be disapointments without this WEP implimentation as people travel. So we’ll just have to see, as Bill said, what happens next.

Again, we appreciate your efforts, comments and service.

Bill

mpenrod · RV-Dreams Community Member

I think there is some confusion on this. While we don't broadcast our local network with WEP, we can connect to WEP networks with the WiFiRanger. So if you are at a park that has WEP, you can connect to it with the WiFiRanger, then use WPA2 to connect to the WiFiRanger.

If you look in the Preferences tab, you'll see your saved networks can be WEP or WPA, or Open.

- Miles

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

mpenrod wrote:

I think there is some confusion on this. While we don't broadcast our local network with WEP, we can connect to WEP networks with the WiFiRanger. So if you are at a park that has WEP, you can connect to it with the WiFiRanger, then use WPA2 to connect to the WiFiRanger.

If you look in the Preferences tab, you'll see your saved networks can be WEP or WPA, or Open.

- Miles

Miles:

Ah, that is definitely a different condition and is a completely different situation than what I had understood in the 3G review and from Matt’s comments.

So yes, that changes the perspective totally. Thank you very much for that clarification. The “Ranger” is back on our list of consideration.

Thank you very much for posting. Very helpful.

Bill

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

I posted this in another thread but thought it might be of interest to those following this one. I can confirm the Ubiquiti product, the “Bullet,” which is an outdoor device used to significantly increase the range of campground WiFi (among other things) does indeed support the old WEP standard with non-standard 10 ASCII character login.

It is my understanding this “Bullet” product will at sometime in the future be “packaged” with the WIFI Ranger as “Boost” product significantly increasing the potential campground WiFi reception range of the WiFi Ranger product.

On a practical basis we have found this compatibility with the old WEP standard, as well as allowing 10 character ASCII login, is still very important to those who travel a lot and may have to depend on campground WiFi’s still using this old, but rather prolific security login standard.

FWIW gang.

(Bill Adams: Works good as you probably know. My only issue has been getting the Bullet to connect to the wireless router when it and the router are powered up at the same time when I turn on the UPS powering the WiFi / Network / Bullet and Network Drives. Cycling the POE injector or the network cable between the Bullet and the router usually brings success. Guess it is just a “handshake” issue.)

Bill

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

I don't know. The Ranger folks keep promising to send me their Boost hardware but as of today the equipment has not appeared.

-- Edited by Bill Adams on Friday 18th of March 2011 07:07:56 PM

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

As of Friday 3/18 the WFRBoost packaged hardware is not yet available. It will be soon, though. They have just gotten some of the mounts back.

Bill, you will find it helpful to power up the Bullet first. That way, when the WFR talks to it, there is something there.

Also, as you have discovered and as we talked offline - there is no issue with WEP security that I know of. And I DO NOT consider requiring something other than WEP on the LAN to be an issue. Rather, I think it is a feature. Granted, an older device can not connect. But you have to draw the line somewhere, and I personally think that not doing WEP is fine on the LAN side. Most people with a device that is this sophisticated are probably going to have newer hardware.

I'm going to give my opinon, and those that will for sure disagree can chime in if they like.

For an RVer, it is MY opinion that the WiFiRanger and the WFRBoost should be bought together. In other words, an RVer should always buy the Boost capability.

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Jack Mayer wrote:

As of Friday 3/18 the WFRBoost packaged hardware is not yet available. It will be soon, though. They have just gotten some of the mounts back.

Bill, you will find it helpful to power up the Bullet first. That way, when the WFR talks to it, there is something there.

Also, as you have discovered and as we talked offline - there is no issue with WEP security that I know of. And I DO NOT consider requiring something other than WEP on the LAN to be an issue. Rather, I think it is a feature. Granted, an older device can not connect. But you have to draw the line somewhere, and I personally think that not doing WEP is fine on the LAN side. Most people with a device that is this sophisticated are probably going to have newer hardware.

I'm going to give my opinon, and those that will for sure disagree can chime in if they like.

For an RVer, it is MY opinion that the WiFiRanger and the WFRBoost should be bought together. In other words, an RVer should always buy the Boost capability.

Jack:

Actually I agree with your comments above completely. On the LAN side, that is inside the rig on the rig WLAN, WEP should not be used. In our case it is not. We use WPA2.

What I was referring to was the Bullet, or WiFi Ranger, connecting to the campground WiFi via the old WEP standard which is sometimes simply required by the campground. If you are in a campground without Air-card connection (or satellite, or phone tether) and all they have is WEP then you have to allow the Bullet (CPE or WiFi Ranger,) to connect to the campground via WEP. However, your internal LAN and internal trailer WiFi should not be on WEP but rather on a much more secure system such as WPA, etc. (Heck, many times the campgrounds don’t even have any encryption on their WiFi.)

(The confusion came from reading the review from 3G Store and misinterpreting what said about WEP to be a limitation on the WFR.)

I think we are in complete agreement on this one especially the part where RV'ers should purchase the WiFiRanger with the Boost feature, (the Bullet), as you suggested, as a package. If you purchase that soon to be offered package, it will do all you suggest and also meet my practical, external WEP requirement quite well.

I'm working on the Bullet, running WEP to the campground, right now. Works really well.

Safe travels to all.

Bill

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

I've posted new pictures of the WFRBoost package on my website.

I'm currently running the 4.0.Gr3 firmware (not yet available) and it is pretty much flawless for anything I have thrown at it. I highly recommend this device at this point. I would not buy any other mobile router unless you have very specialized needs that the WiFiRanger can not fulfill. But for most RVers this is the one to buy. I would get the Pro with the Boost hardware. That Boost hardware should be available within the month.

mpenrod · RV-Dreams Community Member

For any of you out there using the Verizon UML290 LTE modem, I wanted to let you know that they recently did a firmware change that breaks it when using the UML290 with Mobile routers. Our team has fixed this and there is now a new update available for WiFiRanger products that makes the new UML290 firmware work, and also makes the old UML290 firmware work a bit better.

J Riechman · RV-Dreams Family Member

I am so confused. All I want is a router that works with my USB598 from Milleanicom. Is that to much to ask for? LOL

3Gstore_Matt · RV-Dreams Family Member

J Riechman wrote:
I am so confused. All I want is a router that works with my USB598 from Milleanicom. Is that to much to ask for? LOL

If you want something that is plug and play with the USB598 the MBR95 is an excellent option and also provides the WiFi as WAN function, although it won't support the WFRBoost.

I've personally got a 598U through Sprint, that works fine with the WiFi Ranger, but have dealt with customers that have had issues. It may be do to specific firmware versions on the 598U itself; Miles could better answer that part.

So, if you want plug and play right now I'd go with the MBR95, but if you really want the WiFi Ranger you may have a few headaches getting it up and running. We do offer free tech support for a year and if there are any problems Miles over at WiFi Ranger has been excellent about providing additional technical assistance when modems don't seem to be working within the WiFI Ranger.

mpenrod · RV-Dreams Community Member

Hi J Riechman,

We have not yet seen the 598U from Millenicom but have every belife it will work just fine.

Should you have it and a WiFiRanger, we will gurantee that we'll get it to work correctly for you, and if we don't we'll refund you the price of your WiFiRanger.

Our Engineers are activly working on another revision of firwmare, so this would be a great time to have it looked at.

If anyone has the Millenicome 598U and one of our routers, we'd like to make sure to look at it and make sure it works as we expect it to.

- Miles

-- Edited by mpenrod on Wednesday 20th of July 2011 10:35:37 AM