Since changing some of my accounts from Cradlepoint routers managed by ECM to PepWave MAX-BR1 managed by inControl2 my M2M cellular data usage has gone up almost 10-15 times causing them all to incur overage charges. What functionality of inControl is causing all of this data usage and is there a setting I can change to reduce it? All I’m using inControl2 for is monitoring the devices online state.
Also has there been some outages on inControl2? I’ve been receiving dozens of e-mail indication my devices are going up and down when they really aren’t. When I went to login I got invalid SSL certificate errors in all browser I tried and when I continued to the site it didn’t recognize my username and password.
As an example unites that used to use 17mb/mo. are now using 120mb/mo.
Last week there were an outage on InControl 2. It has caused the situation like you have experienced… users receive dozens of email indication of their devices going up and down when they really aren’t. We have applied a patch fix and our team is working on a permanent solution which will be ready in the next two weeks.
InControl 2 will consume more cellular data when it is being monitored real-time. We understand this can be an issue. In the near future, we’ll provide a setting for the user to reduce the reporting/management traffic. We shall provide a detail schedule on the availability of this feature in the next few days.
As I mentioned in another thread, the system should have stopped sending out false alarms since Saturday. We will keep monitoring the system closely to avoid the similar problem from happening again.
Regarding the cellular data consumption concern, we will address it by introducing a new setting: low bandwidth mode. In such mode, the device’s bandwidth consumption will be 15 MB per month or even less. The design is specifically targeted for some data-usage sensitive situation. E.g. some data service plans provide very limited bandwidth per month while the charge is very low. However real-time status monitoring and per-second GPS location reporting will not be available. We targeted the feature to be available in Q2 2014.
Interested in finding out what the average bandwidth use a month SHOULD be when connected to incontrol2
I’m quite happy using it but I find it quite variable and prone to some quite high bursts of traffic with a HD2 on the move
which can be a pain say if dropping into a 2G area from 3G or working back from no signal to some signal
also noted the reporting can be quite out of sync for a while after a network outage
low bandwidth mode makes sense for non GPS enabled units particularly
The data usage depends on two factors: 1. is GPS enable? 2. is the device being monitored over the IC2 web site?
With GPS, the usage is about 135 MB/mth.
Without GPS, the usage is about 58 MB/mth. (Assumption: 1 mth = 31 days)
When someone is monitoring a device, some live data will be continuously fetched from the device.
With GPS, the additional usage is about 57 kB per min.
Without GPS, the additional usage is about 33 kB per min.
In the coming low bandwidth mode, live data will not be fetched. GPS data points will be fetched less frequently.
Thanks, I’ll be looking forward to the low bandwidth mode. It seems though that inControl2 and the MAX-BR1 products are really focused more towards fleet management versus fixed M2M communication. Are there any plans for a simple M2M cellular router without GPS and WiFi built in? We have no need for GPS since our devices are fixed location.
We are very interested and have clients that would be willing to beta test a firmware with
the low bandwidth mode if a beta firmware is released, otherwise we look forward to this feature in the future public release.
I’ve had to raise all of my data plans to 150MB. Would disabling the “post data to reporting server” in the support.cgi help with data usage. I have no need to monitor data usage in inControl2. If anything I’d like to monitor cell signal versus data usage.
Hi Taylor,
We are working on the firmware and it is expected to be released between the end of May and early June. We will keep you updated on that.
Thanks,
Haruki
Thank you for your feedback.
Yes, you can go ahead and disable “post data to reporting server” as well as “Managed by InControl Server” under System > InControl > InControl Management. This will disable the communication between your device and IC2 at the moment. Our engineering team is developing firmware based on customers’ needs.
I do need to monitor online/offline status in inControl2 via e-mail. Is this the same firmware release that will enable “Pepmin” remote administration (6.1.2) or will Pepmin capability be released sooner?
Since low bandwidth mode will not have real-time or nearly real-time alerts e.g. device online/offline, WAN up/down, it may not serve the purpose for device monitoring. May be something between low bandwidth mode and fully managed mode is required, e.g. selectable reporting, etc.
If this is the case with low bandwidth mode what’s its purpose and why would anyone bother to use inControl2 in low bandwidth mode? At a minimum I would expect low bandwidth mode to supervise a devices online status say with a 120 second heartbeat and allow remote admin (Pepmin) management providing offline e-mail alerts. The management portals currently offered by other manufacturers only use 5-10MB/month with full reporting functions that include data usage on all interfaces, signal strength, and complete diagnostics plus much more. Default settings for this service is 120 second heartbeat for online status and logging/data uploads once an hour. If inControl2 wants to compete in this market they will need to have a similar offering. I would encourage Peplink to start a thread asking users input on what they want or need in a service or feature before putting the effort into developing/implementing it. Look at how much feedback you got in just coming up with the “Pepmin” name.
Hi 1wheeler1, thank you so much for your feedback. We have gone back to the drawing board and made some changes to our design. We also like your idea of sharing this on our forum to collect user feedback.
We have gone back to the drawing board and made some changes to our design. We also like your idea of sharing this on our forum to collect user feedback.