Wi Fi mil /Millenicom MIFI /mobile broadband usb/ or Mobile Hotspot - RV-Dreams Community Forum

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Wi Fi mil /Millenicom MIFI /mobile broadband usb/ or Mobile Hotspot

jd31mc · RV-Dreams Community Member

Everyone is speaking Greek to me on all of these product. Here is my situation I will be stationary in one location in southern MD. I may move from one spot to another within 30 mins of each other. I will be using about 15-20GB per month give or take. My kids have an Xbox 360 I have 3 laptops that they use. What would be my best solution? confuse

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill - I did not know that WiFi Ranger can monitor our data usage on the Millenicom plan. Any hints on how we review our data usage??

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

I don't have a WiFi Ranger, but the latest firmware is supposed to be able to monitor data usage. Contact WiFi Ranger to find out how. My Cradlepoint MBR95 can also monitor usage and I use it.

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

The WFR monitors all data passing through the router. It has limited reporting - the Pepwave SOHO has much more detailed reporting. Al of the routers that do bandwidth monitoring are only estimates...the final say is the cellular provider, so you STILL have to check there to be sure.

I have a review of the Pepwave Surf SOHO that compares it to the WFR Go and the Cradlepoint 95 here. It does talk about bandwidth monitoring.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Compared to weekly status from Millenicom, it is nice to have the router tracking usage in real time. We have had a few times where we were running on campground wifi or our AT&T hotspot for a week, where we could compare the MBR95's usage numbers to Millenicom and they have been within 5%. I figure if we stay under 19GB on the router, we are probably safe, and since our highest Millenicom usage has been 12GB, the router usage info is good enough for us.

We are using our AT&T hotspot right now since there is no Verizon service here at the La Conner, WA Thousand Trails, but there is AT&T 4G service (not LTE). Two miles away there is solid Verizon 1X, 3 miles 3G, a few more miles and it is 4G. At some campsites you can pull in a weak Verizon signal with an external antenna and amplifier, but not where we are.

-- Edited by bjoyce on Tuesday 6th of August 2013 08:28:30 AM

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Interesting, we're trying to monitor our usage and trying to figure out the best way to balance this is tricky. Our current campground has free WiFi but this morning it was soooo sloooow and given that I've taken my corporate job on the road with us, it just wasn't cutting it for me. Switched to our Verizon hotspot from Millenicom and it worked great all day. Now we're back on the "free" WiFi at the campground.
We had originally thought we would just add the Verizon data plan to our current cell phone plan but the first day we had the router I blew past 0.5GB in one day (an unusually long and data intensive work day) but that told us really quick that the 10 GB Verizon plan was not going to work for us.
Figuring this out one day at a time right now and loving the freedom!!

nightsky · RV-Dreams Family Member

I use a program called DU Meter to monitor my bandwidth usage, and have done so for several years. I have satellite internet at the S&B and using DU Meter saved me several times from getting FAP'ed. It only works on PC's as far as I am aware.

www.hageltech.com/dumeter/about

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

I used Networx on my main computer, which is much like DU meter. But, with multiple computers and tablets I needed to monitor everything and the router does that. If you do not have a router, the Pepwave Surf SOHO is supposed to have the best usage monitoring.

Note: For anyone still using Hughes.net satellite, http://www.datastormusers.com/hnFAPAlert.cfm , is a good solution since it checks the usage directly with the modem.