100 GB / Month LTE/A data plans?

#1

First off, I’m using a new Pepwave MAX HD2 w/ LTE Advanced (MAX-HD2-LTEA-W-T) and it’s an awesome device.

Backstory: I provide IT support for a mobile church location that recently started meeting at a high school auditorium. We moved from a movie theater where we had a 20Mb fixed wireless connection. The school district wouldn’t allow any permanent antenna installations on campus, so we looked at LTE options (Pepwave).

We receive a feed from the main campus via a Living As One Multisite Platform h.265 decoder (https://livingasone.com/). Every Sunday we receive about 20GB of data to the decoder.

I tested the Pepwave last Sunday with T-mobile and Verizon SIM cards and it worked great. The T-Moble LTE connection was much faster than the Verizon LTE-A connection. (I’m thinking Verizon might have throttled the “unlimited” SIM). In fact, the speeds were even better than our old 20Mb fixed wireless connection.

Our dilemma is that according to T-mobile business sales, they only offer 22GB/mo plans. With the amount we use, I’m going to have to have 4 different SIMs and swap them out each week.

Does anyone know of any other providers that offer high usage, router-friendly plans? The fixed wireless was $700/mo, so LTE seems cheaper so far. I just need a good service. Any recommendations?

#2

With the HD2 you have space for 2 SIM cards = 44 GB/month, There are other equipment options (e.g., the MAX Transit Duo) with redundant SIM cards providing for up to 4 lines = 88 GB/month. Enough?

Z

#3

Yes,I could do 2 T-Mobile SIMs at a time to avoid swapping out every week. That’s my plan for this weekend. Ideally I’d like a second carrier SIM in case the T-Mobile tower goes down.

I’m reaching out to Verizon and Sprint about possible 100GB plans. As LTE-A rolls out, hopefully the carriers make it simpler to sign up for high usage plans.

#4

Verizon’s largest plan is 100 GB/month and it costs $710/month:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/connected-device-plans/

#5

Hi Brendan,

We might be able to provide you an alternative much more flexible and even less pricey if you’re interested.
You can mail your full requirements to sales@venntelecom.com and they’ll come back to you with a proposal.

Kr,

#6

Wow & we thought our carriers in Australia were expensive, in Australia we have these plans (as of 09 Jan 2019 & can be used in a data pool):

I would highly recommend working with @Venn’s team for other international bundles as his team have some amazing data package solutions around the world.

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

#7

Just a quick thought experiment.

  1. Get a MAX Transit Duo - it accommodates up to four SIM cards (two primary, two secondary (“redundant”), with automatic switchover when an allocation limit has been met (e.g., 15 GB/SIM/month)

  2. Get four Verizon BeyondUnlimited (15 GB/month at $50/line) or AboveUnlimited (20 GB/month at $60/line).

  3. Deploy the Transit Duo with all four SIM cards, and set the capacity for each radio to be 15 GB or 20 GB/month, with switch-over to the secondary SIM cards for each radio if the limit for a SIM card has been exceeded.

Cost:

  • BeyondUnlimited: $200/month for 4 x 15 = 60 GB = $3.33/GB
  • AboveUnlimited: $240/month for 4 x 20 = 80 GB = $3.00/GB

If 80 GB/month is insufficient, get another MAX Transit Duo, cascade the two routers (the LAN of one feeds into the wired WAN of the other for a total of up to 8 cellular lines).

Upside:

  • You get up to 160 GB/month for $3.00/GB.
  • You get the benefit of equipment redundancy (two Max Transit Duos, and the option of employing more than one carrier)

Downside:

  • System complexity: More than one SIM card, possibly more than one router.
  • With one MAX Transit Duo there is the set-up complexity of four SIM cards (not much) and quota-management (set-and-forget :slight_smile: ).
  • With two Max Transit Duos there is the added complexity of making the two routers work together. It is fairly straight-forward, but one has to pay attention to the traffic balancing and (depending on how you set it up) the routing of packets between the two.

It is all a bit of a kluge, but it works :slight_smile:

PS: I suggest the MAX Transit rather than the HD2/HD4s since you have not requested SpeedFusion (line bonding). The MAX Transits are less expensive.

#8

@zegor_mjol, I like how you think outside the box! Your approach would definitely work and saves a lot of money on the data costs!

#9

Hi @Brendan_Stark,

I like the suggestion made by @zegor_mjol .

If you wanted to have more data allowance by combining 2 MAX Transit Duo’s (for instance) then I’ve written a guide to explain how to do this - in my example I use a pair of MAX BR1’s but the principle is the same. The guide is available > Here <

Hope this helps,

Steve