One of the more frequent questions asked on Facebook is, “Do I need a cell booster? or “Do I need a hot spot?” Before you buy either, read on…
What’s the real story?
We see a lot of misinformation out there regarding RV internet. In this post, we will talk about what worked for us. Like other people, we went out and purchased a hot spot but quickly found that this alone did not solve all our connectivity issues. We did more research and, like many others, purchased one of the more popular boosters (weBoost). Boosters are not cheap, costing around $500. We installed it on our RV’s roof and found that it did not work exactly as expected. We thought it would boost the signal throughout the length of our RV, but this was not the case. We learned, again after much research, that the way to get the strongest signal was to place the hot spot as close as possible to the booster’s internal antenna. This worked better, but our signal was not reliable due to the way the hotspot works. We learned about MIMO (Multiple In Multiple Out). The hotspot is dedicated to MIMO with two small antennas within. Unfortunately, our WIFI booster would only boost one of the two signals and that’s just the way they work. This was not going to work for us, especially since my wife works from the road and needs reliable internet.
Through additional research, we learned of better ways to get a consistent signal. We learned about cellular modems and that they were much more reliable. Not wanting to spend $1,000 on the higher-grade Pepwave modem, we initially purchased the BR1 MK2 version which cost just about the same as a hotspot. The antennas alone on this modem are larger than a booster. That means that the antennas on the modem pick up a much better signal than the hotspot. Additionally, the Pepwave BR1 MK2 modem has four cellular antennas and two WIFI antennas. It uses two SIM cards so you can run SIM cards from 2 providers and get a little redundancy if you work remotely. Some of the benefits of having the dual SIM and a program that Pepwave calls speed fusion have been essential to keep my wife connected to her office.
Why is the Pepwave Cellular Modem better than a Hotspot or Booster
Using a Pepwave cellular modem is better than a hotspot because the hot spot only pulls a limited amount of data in through its antennas. You do have the option (along with the Pepwave) to put an external antenna on your RV’s roof which is cheaper than buying a booster. A booster costs around $499 and we’ve seen antennas cost about $250 to $300. In talking to other tech sources, I learned that you can do better if you disconnect your booster, it will pick up the signals better. From our experience, that is true. These modems are industrial grade and used in police cars and remote ATMs where internet service is not plugged into the machine. The modems are just more robust than a hotspot.
What are the Costs?
The entry level of this cellular modem can be bought for about the same price as your standard hot spot . This was the modem we initially purchased but the higher grade modem gave us the use of more SIM cards and additional redundancy. Pepwave makes multiple levels of cellular modems. The entry level costs around $250, a mid-grade modem, costs around $500. We upgraded to a power-user version, costing around $1,000, perfect for someone who’s working on the road and needs to stream video, access network files as well as streaming as their primary tv source. But we are power users working from the road and uploading videos. The average RVer could get by with the entry level or mid-grade modem and still be under the cost of a hotspot and booster.
What is Speedfusion and who needs it.
One of the key features of Pepwave modems is called Speedfusion which is an extra subscription. It is inexpensive, about $49 for a Terrabyte which you have a year to use. Speedfusion is an option for those who need unbroken connectivity when using products like: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, etc…
Speefusion does three things to help your internet connectivity:
- Hot failover – If one of your SIM cards has a problem or runs out of data, it will switch over to another SIM card without disruption in service
- LAN Smoothing – As information is sent over the internet, it breaks it down on your end into little packets to send it through a tunnel on the internet. When it gets to the receiving end, those packets are disseminated and some of those packets can be broken or lost. Land smoothing runs concurrently on two of your SIM cards and picks up those lost packets. For more detail, watch this video Speedfusion.
- Bandwidth bonding – If you’ve ever experienced a file hang up when downloading (caused by a broken link), bandwidth bonding repairs the broken link and sends your file quickly.
We hope you found this information useful. If you did, we have more helpful videos on our YouTube site located at Video
