The simple question is has anyone been able to make Max BR1 Mini modems work reliably with static IP address given by Verizon? I currently have a fleet of 11 MAX BR1 Mini’s that I’ve gotten static IP address assigned through my business Verizon account. Each of these modems are setup with IP pass through to a Watchguard firewall as the device receiving the static IP assignment. The problem we have found is the reliability of the LTE connection. Many of these devices will drop connectivity for a few minutes or even to the point of staying offline until a power reboot. All of the modems are static in a building or shelter with most having external antennas. One site for example is on LTE band #4(AWS 1700/2100) RSSI: -76 SINR: 2.0db RSRP:-106dBm RSRQ: -15.0db and yet it the last month it has a ~87% uptime. In the Event Log at times it will have Cellular disconnected (WAN failed) then Cellular connected to … but not always. Is this results normal for a single radio modem or am I missing something. There are 2 of these modems that I have a crazy strong cell signal and they seem to have much better reliability. So do the Max BR1 mini modems need a really good cell signal to be reliable?
Thanks
Any suspiciously regular timing that might indicate a DHCP client renewal on your cellular WAN?
Well that’s very rare.
Are you running a healthcheck on the cellular WAN? if so you can disable that since LTE is the only active connection. With healthcheck disabled when there is no internet the LAN side device can still route traffic over the cellular link and sometimes you’ll see messaging from the mobile ISP in the form of a web redirect to a notice web page.
Lets break this down because you have an issue here.
Signal strength is not good but just about ok at -76 however RSRP is very very bad at -106dBm. This means that signal from your serving cell / resource element is not be received very well which is typically caused by inference (either from a 3rd party source / the RF environment, or from lots of other cellular devices congesting the tower).
The signal to interference + noise ratio (SNIR) is a big indicator of the problem. Loads of signal being received but hardly any of it is the signal you want - most of it is noise. That said its not the lowest SINR I have ever seen, so some signal is getting through.
I think you need to revisit these sites and play with the antenna solution some more. Look for sources of RF noise and reflections that could be messing with you.
Its not normal, but with a single modem unit it is hard to do any remote testing without losing connectivity completely. I would try forcing the use of lower frequency bands to see if you can get a better quality connection.
No but they do need a good quality signal to be reliable. I have had reliable low signal strength rural deployments that were high quality - just lower bandwidth.
I should add, you can set a scheduled daily reboot time for the BR1 Mini, which might get you out of a complete loss situation without needed to visit the site. Something to consider.
Yes there are some that happen right around midnight and noon that I would suppose are DHCP renewals.
Correct the healthcheck is enabled. I will try and let it disabled and see what happens.
Ok I’ll see about doing some tests on interference. Most of these modems are located with FM transmitter equipment that should not be interfering but I may need to test that. How does the Pepwave choose which band it uses? Most of the time it tends to like band 4 (1700mhz/2100mhz) over band 13 700mhz but will it choose the band with least interference or the one for best bandwidth performance?
I’ll definitely look at the reboot function, I had not seen that in the documentation.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll try to update this about how its going.
Just an update. With the smartcheck disabled and the scheduled reboot on the support.cgi page the long term connectivity issues have been reduced. I’m still working on determining whether the near by equipment is part of the signal noise issue or not.