Optimizing LTE-A Modem Performance in an RV

[NealC]

Originally Posted by jharrell

In pass through mode it does not NAT but instead bridges and passes through the ip address assigned by the cell network. This eliminates double NAT and simplifies things significantly in the case where you already have an existing router, only downside is it can be more difficult to get to the admin pages on the passthrough.

Cradlepoints CBA850 is a dedicated passtrough device if you wanted to attempt to add their new CAT 18 modem to your existing Pepwave through a wan port: https://5gstore.com/product/8703_cra...ro_1_year.html

Interesting but I don’t want to pay 800 for the active/active just because I don’t want to wait two minutes for the switchover

[turbopilot]

Originally Posted by jharrell

In pass through mode it does not NAT but instead bridges and passes through the ip address assigned by the cell network.

Thanks. Back to the books. Never worked with this capability before.

[jharrell]

Originally Posted by redbaron73

I am using pass thru on the nighthawk as well. JHarrell provided a good explanation of what it does.

That's great the Nighthawk does passthrough, not all hotspots will. My AC791L will not.

[turbopilot]

Originally Posted by NealC

With both Cellular (Vzw) and WAN (AT&T via BR1 MINI) it will load balance with both items in Priority 1 (which I verified with 5Gstore) as Peplink told me in the thread over there a few weeks ago.

This is not working for me in my testing. I have two WAN sources right now: my LTE-A modem connection in the PepWave and a WiFi as WAN connection hooked up to a DSL modem here in the hangar complex.

My LTE-A connection is getting 20 Mbps down and the DSL WiFi as WAN is getting 5.5 Mbps down. When I put them both in the same priority the PepWave seems to be taking only the DSL connection. I can confirm this by the speed and the WAN IP that shows up on the speed test. Must be more to load balancing than just putting them in the same Priority Box.

[turbopilot]

Originally Posted by turbopilot

Must be more to load balancing than just putting them in the same Priority Box.

Trying to answer my own question it would appear the "load balancing" we are looking for is called Speed Fusion by PepLink. Apparently this feature is not available on the Max BR1 ENT. It is available on the MAX HD2 and HD4.

[NealC]

I suggest follow up on the Peplink forum post where I asked about two in the same priority.

[jharrell]

Originally Posted by turbopilot

Trying to answer my own question it would appear the "load balancing" we are looking for is called Speed Fusion by PepLink. Apparently this feature is not available on the Max BR1 ENT. It is available on the MAX HD2 and HD4.

Load Balancing and Speedfusion Bonding are different in Peplink terms. Load balancing only needs a Peplink router on one side and will distribute connection among each active WAN, however any single connection will only use one of the WANs. So you can get better throughput if you have multiple simultaneous connections running at the same time, like streaming a movie and download a file.

Speedfusion Bonding is part of Peplink's VPN technology and require 2 Peplink devices or their FusionHub on one side. It creates a VPN over all WAN links back to a VPN endpoint running centrally and distributes packets to all of them and reassembles back allowing all bandwidth to be used for even a single connection.

You are right looking this over Speedfusion bandwidth bonding is not available on the BR1 only Speedfusion Failover and WAN Smoothing which help with reliability but not bandwidth sharing.

The BR1 should however be able to load balance but may require some more setup: https://forum.peplink.com/t/exactly-...hmns-work/8059

[turbopilot]

Originally Posted by jharrell

Load Balancing and Speedfusion Bonding are different in Peplink terms. Load balancing only needs a Peplink router on one side and will distribute connection among each active WAN, however any single connection will only use one of the WANs. So you can get better throughput if you have multiple simultaneous connections running at the same time, like streaming a movie and download a file.

Speedfusion Bonding is part of Peplink's VPN technology and require 2 Peplink devices or their FusionHub on one side. It creates a VPN over all WAN links back to a VPN endpoint running centrally and distributes packets to all of them and reassembles back allowing all bandwidth to be used for even a single connection.

You are right looking this over Speedfusion bandwidth bonding is not available on the BR1 only Speedfusion Failover and WAN Smoothing which help with reliability but not bandwidth sharing.

The BR1 should however be able to load balance but may require some more setup: https://forum.peplink.com/t/exactly-...hmns-work/8059

Neil, I saw that exchange. It was talking about outbound rules for WAN usage. I guess that is one form of "load balancing". Better than nothing but I was hoping for the SpeedFusion version of load balancing where it appears two cellular modems are "combined" into one "virtual WAN".

jharrell, it does appear SpeedFusion will do it's magic of creating one WAN using two modems in one device (rather than two devices) using the MAX HD2/4 series of modem/routers.

Whole scene is pretty confusing.

[jharrell]

Originally Posted by turbopilot

jharrell, it does appear SpeedFusion will do it's magic of creating one WAN using two modems in one device (rather than two devices) using the MAX HD2/4 series of modem/routers.

Whole scene is pretty confusing.

Speedfusion always requires two devices as there is no other way to split and reassemble packets going over multiple WANs for a single connection unfortunately. I have also heard mixed reviews on how well it works for increasing bandwidth as it seems the slower connection will always drag things down.

https://forum.peplink.com/t/understa...edfusion/13880

[NealC]

My objective is simply having two cellular networks active for the Pepwave to use without switching back and forth with the slow modem switchovers. I may even put the known good in Priority 1 with the other in Prio 2 or disabled. But switching should be faster or leaving them both in Prio 1. I’m just hoping to make keeping a connection active more reliable.

[jharrell]

Originally Posted by NealC

My objective is simply having two cellular networks active for the Pepwave to use without switching back and forth with the slow modem switchovers. I may even put the known good in Priority 1 with the other in Prio 2 or disabled. But switching should be faster or leaving them both in Prio 1. I’m just hoping to make keeping a connection active more reliable.

Having one in Priority 1 and the other in 2 should do this. I typically have WiFi WAN in priority 1 and Cellular in priority two and if something goes wrong with WiFi it will fallback to Cellular very quickly and switch back when Wifi starts working again.

This is equivalent to "multi-wan - hot standby" on Wifi Rangers which I always had issues with, but works great on Pepwave. Both connections are still active priority 2 is just on hot stand by, you can even still connect to the management page of the stand by device if it has one.

Both in Priority 1 should be like "Multi-Wan - Load balance" in WFR and then you setup your load balancing algorithm which Peplink has 8 to choose from.

[turbopilot]

Originally Posted by jharrell

Both in Priority 1 should be like "Multi-Wan - Load balance" in WFR and then you setup your load balancing algorithm which Peplink has 8 to choose from.

I only have 6 algorithms on my PepWave. One rule is set up by default selecting "Persistence" on Port 443. No idea what that is about.

In any event I need to repeat my tests today using each of the algorithms and see if it changes the behavior I was seeing were the slowest WAN seems to be selected without any Outbound Policy's define.

[NealC]

The past two days I've been doing extensive and exhaustive (exhausting) testing. I mentioned about two weeks ago I was going to order 2 more SureCall antennas and try very short cable lengths and mount then on the back side of the AV box. Well, apparently I never completed the order process and they never came, which is a good thing. Now having placed two more orders I see why the final step was missed, not the most ideal checkout process at 3/5Gstore.com but so be it.

I spoke with a rep at 3/5GStore.com asking their opinion on the best LTE antenna as I wanted to do more testing. Happy with the SureCall's but what else was good. She recommended the Panorama antenna but the price was a bit of a put off. She pointed out antennas with 5db gains, long story short I ordered the Panorama LGMM 5-in-1.

I also wanted to do testing with the SureCall on a ground plane so I designed a concept and 3D printed it that could hold a 8x8 inch thin sheet of aluminum under the top mounting plate. I also designed and 3D printed a mount to elevate the panorama antenna and give me a smaller footprint on a potentially curved mounting surface. Good thing, I needed it to fit it between my surecall wires and the defunct/unplugged WFR.

I first tested the surecall's as they were on both Verizon and AT&T, keep in mind I'm in a remote location. I took screenshots and notes of all of the numbers from speed tests to the cellular strength readings. I then moved the antennas to the ground plane mounts and noted a slight improvement. I'm going to leave the surecalls on the ground plane mounts for a while and get more testing.

I then finally got to testing the panorama antenna. Tons of cables with 16ft of each (5) wowza! I taped the antenna to the center of the roof right of my surecall wires and draped the wires to go through the driver's side window. I fired it up and wow, I actually got LTE-A on Verizon! Woohoo!!! Speeds were amazing. I then tested the WiFi and backed I'd say at least 100ft from the RV and the speed tests were still great. Around 100ft the wifi indicator on the iphone dropped a bar. NOTE: Not the best judge of distance, I think it was more like 200 ft but I'm not sure. Regardless, the wifi is powerful!

Okay, let's do it. Yesterday I struggled a bit with the getting the hole from the roof down to the AV cabinet over my driver's seat. I have two holes already from the WFR and the Weboost/Surecall so I wasn't too concerned with alignment. I drilled through the fiberglass cap and put a flashlight pointing up from the AV box side to help connect the dots. Well, they didn't quite connect so out came the endoscope and that didn't help but so much but I did see things in the roof cap I was a bit surprised to see, but all is good. A trip to Lowe's for a 3/4" long bit and time to drill for oil. Got through, no prize trips to Newmar, cables dropped through. I connect up and bummer, no LTE-A on Verizon this time. I secure the mount and dicor it, called it a night, it started raining.

The numbers were close to the surecall, nothing really earth shattering and I never got LTE-A again on Verizon. AT&T was the winner for where I am. I am satisfied with the antenna and believe it is slightly better than the SureCall and obviously gets WiFi on the roof at the same time.

Before I forget, the panorama says ground plane is not needed and if you did add one it has to be at least 20x20 inches. I emailed both 3/5Gstore.com and Panorama with my concern about the RV roof being fiberglass vs. metallic like most use cases for this antenna and both said clearly, no ground plane required.

In working on the wiring in the AV box what I noticed was the antenna has about 2-3 foot cable it comes with and someone added 16ft lengths. I was able to cut through the heat shrink and separate/remove the extension and it wasn't needed for where I'm mounting my pepwave (see attached). So I figured I'd see something amazing by having such a short cable. NO DIFFERENCE. I'm sorry, I do not believe the cable length is a factor in the discussions we've had with quality/low loss coax. From 2-3 ft compared to 16+ ft, the numbers did not reflect the change. But I don't want all the extra cable so this works out ideal, I'll cut down the WiFi coax once the correct SMA connectors come Wednesday and tidy up the install.

In today's final power up Verizon actually attached to Band 2 (1900 mhz) instead of the 700 mhz bands and had 20 MB/20 MB speeds instead of the barely 2 mb/s. It would be interesting to only allow the high mhz bands and see how Verizon handled that at this location.

The numbers show better for the Panorama and I'm sticking with it. Having the surecall's on the roof is why I decided to get the BR1 MINI today as I already have a MIMO setup ready for it.

Here are the stats:

Surecall:

Frequency Range: 698-960/1700-2700MHz
Antenna gain: 2-3dB at 698-960 MHz; 3-4dB at 1700-2700 MHz
Impedance: 50ohm

Panorama:

Frequency and gain:
Cable 1 & 2 (cellular):

2.3db at 698-960MHz
5db at 1700-2700MHz

Cable 3 & 4 (WiFi):

2db at 2.3-2.7GHz
2db at 4.9-6GHz

Cable 5 (GPS):

26db at 1575MHz

VSWR:

Cellular: < 2.5:1
WiFi: < 2:1
GPS: <2.0:1 ± 4MHz

A lot of testing, a lot of reading above, a lot of money, but I think it's a great system and far superior to weboost + WFR as we all know. I'll let you know how the two units work together when that gets setup later this week but it will take time to test and various locations to really see how things work out.

[jharrell]

Nice to see some testing of the Panaorama 5 in 1 vs others. I am really happy with mine but only had the jetpack by itself to compare to. I went by what I know of antennas and that it didn’t need a ground plane and favorable testing of the similarly designed MobileMark by rvmobileinternet.com which does require a ground plane. It also has a gps antenna for the pepwave so you can locate your rv remotely should it get lost

Somewhat surprised the cables have extensions I believe mine are continuous, now makes me wonder although I need the length. Shorter is also better but so are many other factors in the antenna system.