WifiRanger Denali- LTE Modem?

[docj]

Originally Posted by GUS2000

Since the last firmware update, I have to do a factory reset every few days on both the Spruce and Denali to get things running normally... the Denali will show its connected and tethered to the Spruce, but the spruce will not connect to the Denali's internet connection or any wifi connection directly using 2/5g on the spruce.. any ideas when the next firmware will be released???

That's not normal behavior and I'm surprised you've been putting up with it this long. Please send an email to support@wifiranger.com to open a support ticket. Include the 6-digit ID numbers of both Rangers.

You shouldn't have to wait for another update to get this problem fixed.

[oneknight]

This is an extraordinarily scary thread.

We have a wifiranger "core" router, purchased in 2017. It ran perfect for 5-6 YEARS, until the B11 upgrade. Now it reboots itself periodically (often) and doesn't reconnect (It either never rebooted or always reconnected before the firmware upgrade)

I've contacted support and been ignored.

In spite of this, Friday I ordered a new Aspen router.

Wifi ranger charged my credit card, but never acknowledged my order, never sent me any kind of email, nothing, nada, zippo.
I emailed support today, no reply.

I like wifirangers software and features a lot. Much easier to use than my previous pepwave surf solo.
But b11 SUCKS, and I'm obviously not the only person having trouble.
This thing should just run, forever.
My charter cable modem at home runs forever. never needs to be touched or rebooted.
My Netgear orbi system runs forever. It's been a year since I plugged it in, it just works.

Is it wrong to expect the same from my RV System?

Joel, if you're out there, can you track down my order and at least acknowledge it and send me a prospective ship date?
wifiranger does have my money...

[evofxdwg]

Well....I was planning on checking and bringing my Spruce/Denali firmware up to date in the next couple of weeks in prep for a big trip this summer. I guess I'll hold off and monitor this thread a while.

[oneknight]

Originally Posted by oneknight

Friday I ordered a new Aspen router.

Wifi ranger charged my credit card, but never acknowledged my order, never sent me any kind of email, nothing, nada, zippo.
I emailed support today, no reply.

I received a ship notice and tracking number this morning (3-23)
Can't wait to get my new router.

[docj]

Originally Posted by evofxdwg

Well....I was planning on checking and bringing my Spruce/Denali firmware up to date in the next couple of weeks in prep for a big trip this summer. I guess I'll hold off and monitor this thread a while.

It's all too easy to form a negative impression about something like a software version when you read comments posted in forums like this because most people who post do so because they are having problems. There are many thousands of WiFiRanger customers using the current 7.1.0b11 firmware and we haven't heard from most of them because they aren't having problems.

FWIW my Aspen is currently running a dual source MultiWAN and I just checked its control panel. It's been up and running for 14 days without a problem.

I'm not in any way dismissing the complaints of those who are experiencing issues, but IMO they represent a small percentage of the total user base.

[docj]

Originally Posted by oneknight

Joel, if you're out there, can you track down my order and at least acknowledge it and send me a prospective ship date?
wifiranger does have my money...

I believe you said you ordered the item on Friday and it shipped Monday or Tuesday. Our shipping folks only work a 5-day week. Maybe someday we'll be like Amazon with 24/7 shipping capability!

[GUS2000]

Hey DocJ, will the Aspen Router work with a Verizon SIM card?? Thinking of upgrading this Spruce to the Aspen..

[docj]

Originally Posted by GUS2000

Hey DocJ, will the Aspen Router work with a Verizon SIM card?? Thinking of upgrading this Spruce to the Aspen..

At the present time none of WiFiRanger's integrated modems are certified for use on Verizon.

I think your best option is to get an Inseego M2000 hotspot from Verizon and tether it to the Spruce. It is a state of the art 5G device.

[GUS2000]

Thanks DocJ... any idea when there will be a 5G upgrade available for the Denali???

[docj]

Originally Posted by GUS2000

Thanks DocJ... any idea when there will be a 5G upgrade available for the Denali???

With 4G LTE speeds now commonly at 50-100 Mbps in many areas, I don't see anything compelling me to jump into 5G which is still very much an evolving "standard." For example, just a couple of days ago Verizon approved C-band certification for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro phones. I believe those are among the first phones certified for use in that part of the spectrum which is where the ultra-wideband growth is going to be over the next several years. I own a Pixel 6 Pro but I don't expect to see C-band coverage in my location anytime soon.

But IMHO it would be foolish to jump into 5G at present without having C-band capability and yet I don't know when that capability will flow down to modems for use in devices such as the Ranger.

My personal opinion is that the best thing to do is to get the best available hotspots and tether them to your indoor Spruce router. That way you can always have the latest modem technology available to you and can easily swap the hotspot out as newer models become available.

For example, Verizon's best hotspot has been the Inseego M2000 5G with a Category 22 modem, but now that C-Band is opening up I'm confident there will be a newer model available soon.

[GUS2000]

well... after unreliable connectivity to both wifi and cellular networks, I uninstalled the Denali/Aspen equipment and installed a Peplink MAX BR1 Pro 5G router and couldn't be happier.. Incredibly stable and getting better speeds on the same AT&T business plan that I had in the Denali without the intermittent loss of connectivity.. wish I had done this switch a long time ago!! Thanks to Redbaron73 and Suburbazine for sharing their experience with their peplink units and all the questions I had!!

[evofxdwg]

I give the overall Denali/AT&T data/Campground Wifi experience a D MINUS:
-AT&T is VERY difficult to register the SIM and pay the bill! (prepaid $55/100GB plan).
-Your monthly AT&T re-up might be canceled or disappear for unknown reasons, requiring discovery of same (as opposed to equipment/software problems).
-AT&T data service is pretty crappy (<6MB/s download) in the 3 places I have tried it so far. Occasional speed tests result in <1MB/s, which I assume causes streaming dropouts.
- I have very little idea how well AT&T performs when driving as our only indicator is the various Nav devices that use wifi freezing up, or my wife's Facebook or other sites not loading, which is sporadic.
-Campground wifi ranges between sucks to marginal at most campgrounds. (River Bend Campground in Hiawassee GA was an exception: they get a B+)
-Figuring out how to use Converge to set up campground wifi in conjunction with AT&T is "plug and try."
-If it doesn't work well, I don't have a comfortable feeling if it is Converge settings, or the data sources, or both, that are the problem.

(Ive ignored the data privacy problem being discussed elsewhere. Im sure lots of my private data is out there from data breaches and trackers. I don't plan to stuff ballot boxes or murder anyone so I dont really care.)
-------------
Detail saga:

Well im on my 2nd month of AT&T $55/100GB prepaid plan. I didn't use it much the first month since the RV was sitting in the driveway for most of that. I just wanted to sign up and try it out in April to see if I could get it to work. That first attempt was an adventure, mostly due to problems registering for that plan and paying the bill.

Then I had to wait 30 days, actually letting the first paid month lapse, before AT&T would send me an email to reset the password on the paygo website. Thier normal reset method is to text a PIN or password to your modem or hotspot device. Of course the Denali cant see that text. Only after you have been a customer for 30 days will AT&T send an email.

They did indeed finally send an email to reset my password and I can now log on to paygo. (dont get me started about what an obfuscated site it is to look at past billing and usage!)

We started our 3 month motorhome trip and I had AT&T service on the drive to the first campground. I set up the Denali using Converge with my best guess of all the settings for AT&T as the only source. Wife said she thought it dropped out at least once on that first 140 mile drive. I was driving and not inclined to stop and check Converge status. So maybe it helped out with navigation - who knows.

We were in the Gadsden AL area for nearly 3 weeks at two different campgrounds. The AT&T prepaid account 1st month lapsed soon after arriving at the 1st campground. We had moderately useful campground wifi at both (when there wasn't a crowd on weekends), so I didn't re-up the AT&T plan until a few days before leaving the 2nd campground.

I re-upped and played with the combination of campground Wifi in conjunction with AT&T service: there were a lot of dropouts and reconnects. Internet was pretty unusable on weekends when there were a lot of people in the park. AT&T/Denali service didn't seem to help that problem. Late at night, and on Monday when everybody left, it got better. As an example, between 9 and 11:30 PM, I was able to stream a couple of episodes of "Bosch:Legacy" on Amazon prime, with only 3 or 4 dropouts, each lasting a minute or three and sometimes seeming to require me to fiddle with Converge to coax a reconnect.

Heading west, we are now on a stop at an Alabama state park near Rogersville AL. No campground wifi, just AT&T plan cell source. Wife wanted to watch NHL hockey games using our Sling account. So I got that going, with dropouts every few minutes, but did not require messing with Converge. TV would simply show the spinning 'wait' symbol for several seconds to a minute or so. Then after watching for 20 minutes or so, all of a sudden, the stream quit and would not come back. TV displayed the problem with connection screen. I got on Converge and saw the cell modem connecting, getting IP, then retrying. After 15 minutes of fiddling with Converge, I switched over to using my Verizon phone as a hotspot and went to paygo.com to review my account, minutes, etc. and figured out from thier obfuscated account display that the account was probably not active! And I also looked at my credit card account and there was no record of the $55 AT&T renewal charge I had done several days prior!!! I had been using (but marginally) AT&T service for several days and there was no record of it or charge for it! And the data service was cut off only about 1/2 hour before this!

So I re-upped again the $55 for 100GB a month and snapshot the confirmation screen this time (no, they dont send a confirmation email). And this time I confirmed the charge is pending on my credit card (although I think I did that several days ago before the charge disappeared). I got the NHL hockey game going again and there is a brief dropout maybe every 4-6 minutes but seems to be getting better as it gets later.

We are 3 weeks into a 3 month trip. Wish us luck with data service!

[GUS2000]

Here is what the Peplink unit gets with the same AT&T Data plan as I had in the Denali.. big improvement in performance, stability and ease of setup.

This location is in Reunion Lake RV Resort in Ponchatoula LA.. probably the fastest speed I have seen but there is a tower pretty close by..

[docj]

Originally Posted by GUS2000

Here is what the Peplink unit gets with the same AT&T Data plan as I had in the Denali.. big improvement in performance, stability and ease of setup.

This location is in Reunion Lake RV Resort in Ponchatoula LA.. probably the fastest speed I have seen but there is a tower pretty close by..

With all due respect, unless you are testing at the same physical location where you did the test with the Denali, the comparison is meaningless. Data plans speeds vary widely from location to location.