Have an old Max Transit Duo (non Pro), getting Starlink Mini. Best alternative to a Peplink eSIM for trickle cellular bonding?

Specialized Market Starlink
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Questions:

  1. Any good physical sim plans similar to peplink’s eSIM NA/Europe plan?

  2. If not, BR1 Mini 5G vs Max Transit Duo + 5G dongle.

  3. Bonus, confirm expected bandwidth with a “trickle” cellular policy bonded to starlink.

Context:

We’ve been using a Max Transit Duo since 2021 for professional video calls in a camper van with ATT/VZN/TMO data plans, and are thinking of moving to a starlink mini + a minimal cell plan to handle drops and satellite handoffs. Our router obviously doesn’t support eSIMs. It’s still working, though every month or two one of the modems doesn’t recognize any SIMs in it with a variety of error messages, but a reboot or two fixes it (ongoing issue over years since we got it with no resolution via support).

We could replace the Max Transit Duo for a BR1 Mini 5G, which would get us 5G+LTE and 4x MIMO on a single modem (two cell modems aren’t as necessary w starlink as primary source) on our Parsec Husky and eSIM support, but if all we’re doing is a trickle of cell data to stop hard drops from sat handoffs we don’t really need the performance gains aspect.

There’s also the new 5G dongle, thought I can’t find the compatibility list for it on the peplink site (the product page link is busted and goes to a generic page, and the datasheet doesn’t have that info). We’d also be stuck with the slower CPU on the Duo for bonding performance and it’s nearly the price of a BR1 Mini 5G and a less elegant solution, though we’d then have the option of three cell modems (which isn’t realistically useful for us).

The best option with physical SIMs seems to be bringing the router into an ATT store and getting their 20GB/mo prepaid plan for $300/year - we don’t have standard VZN lines to get their postpaid connected device or multiline prepaid plans discounted, so it’d be $40/mo for 5G of data on that network which annoying.

If a single peplink esim would get us through the year, then it’d be worth buying a new router just to get lower overhead on cell plans, along with a lower primecare overhead.

The peplink eSIMs seem like a great solution, though we don’t need the SF allowance as we have 6TB saved up (many locations only have one good carrier and it’s better not to bond, also mobile must have didn’t know how to renew our Primecare so we were without paid for SF for weeks until Frontier had to step in and do it for them, we got some free allowance as an apology) which it seems we’d lose switching to a new router.

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bump :slight_smile:

Also rewrote the title to be relate to the main focus of the post better.

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I think a lot depends on what trade offs you’re willing to make because low usage / low cost SIMs for consumers tend to have weird and/or hidden trade offs.

If you want something super cheap, I’ve experimented with buying the TCL Linkport IK511 from T-Mobile and moving the SIM to my Peplink without a problem. That used to be $10/m and now it’s $5/m for a modest amount of data. It does require a 24m commitment in exchange for the “free” modem dongle.

If you want something unlimited but weird then there is Calyx at $500/year. They’re a non-profit and the support is almost nonexistent but you get an unlimited data SIM on T-Mobile’s network. I’m using that now and I’m happy with it as a backup/smoothing WAN.

If you’re a Google fan, then their “Fi” MVNO lets you add up to four data-only SIMs to a phone plan (and it shares data with the phone plan). I wish more carriers would do this.

If you want something carrier agnostic(ish), then USMobile is good for low usage and the only consumer plan that I know of that lets people pool data across SIMs.

Finally, I don’t work for MobileMustHave but RV life is why they created their RoamLink MVNO.

PS – I’d try cleaning your SIMs with isopropyl alcohol if you’re having reliability issues and then avoid touching the metal contacts when the SIM is inserted.

1 Like
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Thanks for that detailed response. :slight_smile:

For a single carrier ATT or VZN would be preferred, multicarrier would be icing on the cake. My partner is usually on Verizon in winter/spring and ATT in summer/fall, so I guess we could swap around too. TMO is pretty much the worst carrier or just doesn’t get signal (the Max Transit Duo doesn’t support b71), but might be fine just to trickle a starlink keepalive.

Calyx: $500 a year for TMO… iirc we’re paying $50/mo month for 100GB and that’s a normal supported plan (though we don’t use it much).

The TCL Linkport IK511 sounds interesting. I can’t seem to find those plans online, can you share a link or specs? 24m commitment is fine, I’ve been doing 12m prepaid plans on my personal phone (att, visible).

GoogleFi & USMobile - are you able to use the normal data for that on the peplink router, or does that come out of their hotspot allowance? USMobile is interesting, we normally don’t change our primary carrier that often as is so even on a cheaper plan the $2 fee is nothing.

RoamLink MVNO honestly seems like it could be the best solution once we sort out of how much bandwidth we’re actually going to use. I have been super unimpressed with their tech support in the past with very simple asks, and contacted them about an antenna that’s directional (in the way they were selling it) that they were marketing as being omnidirectional. They agreed they were wrong, but said they weren’t going to change it (and didn’t).

Good to know their SIM card works on 12v??? https://mobilemusthave.com/cdn/shop/files/internetbuiltforlifeontheroad.png?v=1773182909&width=1080

We’ll drop ATT & TMO we know that starlink bonding works and is set up correctly, then play around to see what allowances we actually need on VZN (our most expensive plan, but the most useful one for us june-oct, and without starlink having higher priority is good so we’ve been on business VZN and ATT plans) and then take it from there I think - this gives us a lot of options to look at. :slight_smile:

re: cleaning with swabs, the unit gives a variety of different errors on that modem, a reboot or two fixes it. When firmware 8.2x came out the entire unit would freeze up, modem reboot, iirc which made it unusable. Tech support couldn’t isolate an issue with repeated access to logs and some custom firmware etc. Stuck on 8.1x for a while then tried out 8.4 and it’s been fine aside from it occasionally not reading/connecting to the sim.

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Hi @erutan,

Jacob N from MobileMustHave/RoamLink here, we would be happy to help correct any tech support issues you’ve had with us in the past and welcome you to take a look at RoamLink :slight_smile:

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Years ago we renewed primecare and were without service for weeks because your techs didn’t know how to apply it to our router. I was repeatedly told it was my fault because I didn’t enter the information into the router myself.

Fronter finally stepped in and fixed it because no one at your company apparently knew how, despite me quoting and linking to official documentation.

Not sure how you can correct that. Better training I guess.

On the second point, email chain from a while back:

Parsec Husky Pro 7-in-1 Antenna – MobileMustHave.com “Description: 5G, Omni-Directional, 4x4 MIMO LTE, 2x2 WiFi, GPS, IP-67 Rated, 7’ or 15’ Cables”

“This antenna variant features 4 cellular antennas, 2 wireless antennas, and 1 GPS antenna making it a perfect match for our Peplink Dual CAT 6, 12”

Erik (senior specialist): “I’d rather be connected with some directional bias than not connected at all and that example proved true time and time again without rotating the antenna.”

Me: “I’m not saying it doesn’t work well in the field […] I’m just trying to point out that unless people dive into the MIRC forum, they’re expecting to buy an omni antenna as that is how you’re selling it… which it isn’t when it’s running on two antennas per modem! There can be at least a 6db fluctuation which is a meaningful difference… if people don’t know it’s semi-directional they wouldn’t think of repositioning / moving the antenna if they’re in a spot with marginal reception since they were recommended to buy the best omnidirectional antenna. Does that make sense?”

Erik: “I get what your saying but the vast majority of our customers are on information overload and just want to be told what we find works best […] my job is not just to inform customers but also not to confuse them with information that in the end might ultimately put them in an antenna I dont think is as good. […] i agree 6db is a lot but if the mobilemark was performing 10db lower anyway it was moot because i was still up 4db in the aggregate.”

Parsec: “You wouldn’t choose the Husky antenna if you only needed 2X2 LTE.”

So MMH knows the antenna isn’t truly omnidirectional when used in a 2x2LTE modem, but since it works better than a competing product so say that it’s omnidirectional… which is true if using a single modem, but at the time they were selling it in a bundle with the max transit duo and still promote it as being omnidirectional with two modem routers.

Not very confidence inducing. Kind of seems like one guy that got a cert and hired a bunch of his RV buddies?