Awesome! Thank you for sharing this @joelbean
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Can you by any chance help me with this? I am getting my visible sim tomorrow and would like faster speeds.
“this” being what?
Cheers,
Z
Setup for speed fusion via a max transit duo.
Setting up speed fusion on my pep wave max transit duo
A quick search of the forum yields this link:
SpeedFusion is done the same way as with other carriers, nothing special about Visible. @MartinLangmaid has some good postings/articles on how to establish vultr.com fusionhubs (and the setup for my favorite provider, UpCloud, is similar)
Have fun.
Z
following existing guides/posts…
Hello Paul and everyone else.
Should I be expecting to have tons of trouble getting sim cards to work in my Max Transit Cat 18?
As a non-tech person who is trying to continue his voice over career (live recordings sometimes using Source Connect), I am getting this gear and a roof mounted antenna based on a lot of research. This set up seems best for my interest in boondocking and still pulling it off.
However, this thread is full of complaints that Peplink doesn’t even work with Verizon sims?
What’s the point in buying this equipment if no one will offer me a working data plan?
Was hoping to purchase the $50 T-Mobile plan and somehow supplement with ATT (doesn’t offer a sim outside of hotspot device) or Verizon (no sims except for Visible and low ping rate is important to me). I will look for third party for a Verizon sim, but can I expect it to work?
Thanks,
Brian
The T-Mobile $50/100GB plan works in a Max Transit CAT18. You can also set an automatic switchover to the 2nd slot if you reach 100GB in the billing month. I didn’t in my 1st month and it looks like I pulled 135GB, but as far as I can tell it did drop the priority/data rate. It’s a useful plan for band 71 when needed.
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I would say, yes this is the hardest part (or the only really difficult part) of the setup.
This year we saw t-mobile add the 100 GB hotspot plan which works with the cat 18 pepwave. It has “limited time” in the offer so get it now if you want it, as it could change at any moment.
There was also a cricket 100 GB hotspot plan for $90/month, but for some reason they said the pepwave cat 18 will stop working in one year under their 3G turn off… no idea why. The IMEI checker previously said the pepwave was compatible.
There is also the ATT business wireless broadband plan option
https://www.business.att.com/products/wireless-broadband.html
that comes in speeds of 8mbps, 12mbps, 50mpbs and 100mbps plans that should work well with pepwave devices despite offering a competitor’s device as an option.
I would really like to see a page like the above on ATT, Verizon, and T-mobile’s websites offering plans with pepwave routers! Wonder if a crowd vote approach would get any attention at any of the US carriers to offer increased support for pepwave routers? Does Pepwave’s competitor offer the carrier something that Pepwave could offer to make a mutually beneficial deal?
Pepwave devices are enterprise (not consumer) devices. All the major carriers offer plans for them via their business/enterprise channels I am pretty sure.
It would be really great if someone created a resource that listed the enterprise channels / plans / prices and how to sign up for those plans.
Or it would be great if Peplink could create a line of Pepwave devices that that could be considered consumer devices by the carriers so you could have (at least some of) the pepwave features that we love but have data rates that normal citizens and small businesses and home office users could afford to use and be able to signup for.
welp i accidentally edited my post instead of making a new one, so lost my reply. below is bits and pieces of what i remember that i said:
in summary, one can sign up for business plans easily, might need FEIN and proof of business though. if you can get a plan compatible with a router, expect to pay $$$. here is an example: https://www.business.att.com/content/dam/attbusiness/briefs/att-wireless-broadband-pricing-brochure.pdf
enterprise plans require minimum commits (lines) usually and a dedicated account rep gets assigned. many companies pay for actual data usage and pool data. GBs aint cheap.
peplink is not in the consumer market, i dont see them entering it.
most of the carriers offer home internet/rural internet plans. likely locked to a tower/location so not good for boats/RVs. they all require one to use their equipment much like cable/fiber ISPs require their customers to some times use their mandatory gateway.
so yes, there is a huge hole for RV’ers and Boaters. I started relying on WiFi as WAN more but think my ISP started banning routers in October.
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I don’t think the situation would change if Pepwave made a “consumer device”, whatever that really means. As far as I can see, the carriers simply don’t sell data plans for routers at anything close to a price that RVers (like me 
) and rural consumers want to pay for a moderate “household amount” of data and be permitted to use it for “entertainment” purposes, i.e., streaming TV etc. I guess this is available Data Only, Hotspot & Tablet Data Plans | AT&T Prepaid but $75/mo for 40 GB is horrendously expensive.
You’re correct, of course. The “home internet” type service is designed for this and is obviously the way to go if you can get it. But, as you note, it’s locked to a location.
RVers and the like are hoping for a more general purpose data plan that doesn’t cost a fortune, can be put it in a router, used in any location and treated much like a home internet connection. One possibly reasonable conclusion is that such a plan just isn’t practical at this time because the network simply doesn’t have the bandwidth. If that’s the way it is then I’m a realist and could reluctantly accept that, there’s much bigger problems in the world, but it doesn’t really add up with the reality of what’s happening
There are numerous resellers selling something like 500 GB or “unlimited” plans for anything from $80 to $200/mo. Of course nobody seems to really know what these plans are behind the scenes or when they’re going to have problems like a lot of AT&T plans did around new year. Are they all dubious repackaged tablet or phone plans? After months of looking at this stuff, I still can’t figure out if there is a legitimate wholesale channel for these plans and if some are legit in the eyes of the carriers. In addition to that, a quick look at a few Facebook groups makes it clear that there is widespread abuse of the AT&T $20 tablet plan happening. A lot of people have that in a router and are doing 500 GB per month, many with the IMEI changed to make the router look like a tablet.
The carriers, especially AT&T, must surely be aware of all this. It seems like if they cracked down on the abusers they would then have bandwidth to sell their own plan to this group of customers. In the past when they’ve tried something like this, they’ve sold it as “unlimited” which of course attracts the data hogs doing terabytes per month which ruins it for everyone when it’s shut down and those that are “grandfathered” are left holding a valuable item that is no longer available. It seems like if they do it again, they need to have a reasonable limit.
They might be in a bit of a tricky situation. I can see how if they sold their own data plan available in stores with sufficient data for a household then it would be tempting to a lot of people living in apartments etc as an alternative to dealing with the likes of Comcast or whatever their landlord provides for broadband. That’s probably unsustainable so they need to prevent that so maybe they somewhat turn a blind eye to the current situation of dubious resellers and abusers because it’s kind of a natural limiter. With the way things are now, you have to be dedicated to finding a solution or be a bit of nerd.
Anyway … obviously none of this is really anything to do with Pepwave. The one dealer who pushes Pepwave for RVers seems to be Mobile Must Have. They sort of sell their own AT&T data plan. “Sort of” because they really only refer you to a “data partner” although I think the first payment is to MMH. There’s a 30-45 day waiting list. $349.99 the first month and then $160/mo for 500 GB.
Of course to Pepwave, the US is only one market. It seems like this is easier in many other countries.
“I still can’t figure out if there is a legitimate wholesale channel for these plans and if some are legit in the eyes of the carriers”
I will answer your question. 9 out of 10 or more are not legitimate re-sale channels.
It sure would be nice if one of the major wireless carriers decided to use pepwave for their gateway device. Then no more worries.
Then the issue would be pricing. Pepwave devices are more costly than the devices they use. Also, they may be too complex for the common user. Then imagine trying to provide support to consumers with all the settings.
AT&T has a plan specifically marketed with a Cradlepoint. I’d like to see one of the carriers market a similar plan with a Peplink.