I am just setting my new Max Br1 MK2. I have it only connected to my local wifi in my house right now. When connected to my wifi from my laptop I get about 84 mbps download and 4.5 upload. But when I connect to my pepwave BR1 which is connected to the same SSID, I get only 18 mbps download and 11 upload. While I am impressed with the upload, the download is really bad. Are there any settings that I can tweak? I understand that it may be a little slower, but not this much. The Pepwave BR1 is about 20 feet away from my home wifi router.
Can you please elaborate? You are using WiFi WAN on the MK2 to connect to your existing home WiFi? Then how are you connecting to the MK2? Via WiFi LAN/AP? If so, expect slow speeds using MK2 for both WiFi WAN and LAN. Many will get a separate AP to handle LAN and let the MK2 just do WiFi WAN. Also, this is older hardware, so its not the fastest…
I purchased this new Pepwave Max BR1 MK2 for my RV. The main reason I got it because it could connect to a cellular sim card and WIFI, then to broadcast that as wifi into the RV. What do you mean when you say older hardware? It is still featured on the peplink website. I understand that it would take a small hit with the speed basically being a wifi extender. But to go from 84 mbps to 18 mpbs seems like a rather large hit.
I do not have the SIM card yet, but I wanted to set it up and then test it before I install it in my RV. I set the BR1 to connect to my WIFI at home (5g) and then set up both a 2.4g and 5g AP on the BR1. I then connected my computer to the new pepwave BR1 wifi. I get the 18 mbps speed for both the 2.4 and 5 AP’s.
Expect half the speed if you are using it as both WiFi WAN and WiFi LAN AP. Again, many will recommend getting a dedicated LAN AP if using the MK2 WiFi WAN. Since you have a RV, I am guessing you plan to mount an antenna externally, so it makes even more sense, so your inside LAN connections dont have to go through the RV structure to the antenna outside for connectivity.
Try this test: connect WiFi WAN, turn off WiFi LAN AP, and use an ethernet cable direct to MK2 for your device you are using for speed test. Now what speed do you get?
Thanks for the idea. However, my laptop does not have an the ethernet connector. I am interested in trying out what the results are in my RV after installing the antenna. Now, I have to wait for the rain to stop before I can cut a hole in my roof and install the antenna.
usb ethernet adapter. i’d always carry one.
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SOLUTION:
This is a design flaw of the Pepwave BR1 Mini. It claims to support WiFi WAN, but that is not entirely truthful on the part of PepLink. The problem is that the device has only one WiFi radio. When it uses the single radio to support both WiFi AP (broadcasting an SSID to connect clients), and WiFI WAN (connecting the BR1 to the Internet), it suffers a serious performance degradation. This device should have been designed with 2 separate WiFi radios & 2 separate WiFi antennas. There is a “work-around” that is actually fairly cheap & affective. You can buy a WiFI (extender) to Ethernet converter device from Amazon for about $45. Use that to connect to a local WiFi signal, then attach the ethernet port of the extender device to the WAN port of the Pepwave BR1 mini. My throughput went from 2-3Mbps, up to 30Mbps. IMHO it is a bit ridiculous to have to add a cheap WiFi (extender) device to a much better & more expensive device (the BR1) in order to get the much better device to actually work properly. It tells me the design engineers should have found this flaw and added another WiFi radio for $45 into the BR1 during the product development phase. I would have gladly paid a few $$ more to not have such a serious design flaw in the BR1 mini.
I hope the engineers at PepLink see this review & consider fixing such serious design flaws on future products & revisions. That being said, I think this is an excellent device - short of the one major design flaw. The device management menu & controllable features otherwise earn an A+ from me, when compared to many other network products. It is Enterprise worthy at a SOHO price.
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I understand how using the wifi as wan as well as wifi lan causes slowness - what kind of device would you do for wifi lan?
Thanks for this! Makes sense to me - cant wait to give it a try