We have deployed a number of visible SIM cards, on (vintage) MAX BR1s and on recently deployed MAX BR1 Mini LTE-As and MAX HD2 Mini LTE-As.
Some are run principally via SpeedFusion links to FusionHubs (all the traffic routed that way), others are presented naked to the world.
The service has been as stable as with Verizon in the same regions, though with an occasional dash of higher latency.
The bandwidth has been great for the SpeedFusion links (seemingly full, unthrottled Verizon speed).
For the naked deployments the bandwidth for LAN devices are throttled (5 Mbps) unless you play with the TTL setting (64 seems to do the trick at this point).
Some locations have pulled 100-200 GB/month, seemingly without ill effect.
This all may change, of course, as Visible evolves.
…also, my needs are likely 30-50gb/ mo. when cruising.
Have max transit cat 18 router.
Router adjustments as I understand are:
APN: VSBLINTERNET
Network Mode: generic
TTL: 64
Is the above correct?
Thanks!
Yes, your summary reflects the settings we have been using.
I would recommend setting up a FusionHub Solo and connect through that. It provides for an additional level of control and security (and provides a routable IP address, which is often handy).
For that we use UpCloud.com mostly, @MartinLangmaid really likes vultr.com Both run to $5/month for a Fusionhub installation, including a 1TB traffic allocation per month.
The setup is really easy - about 10-15 minutes for UpCloud, and similarly for vultr. I can PM you an annotated guide (based on the generic one for custom images published by UpCloud).
Btw., it is all really easy if your device is managed through InControl2 - the setup of the SpeedFusion connection is a matter of a few clicks.
I’m only getting 5MB down on visible now. Looks like their website changed to include 5G recently as well. 5MB is too slow for me. I’m looking for alternatives on the Verizon network. If any one has any ideas, please let me know.
I signed up for visible a few weeks ago. At that time they had lifted the 5mbps limit, but the site did say that it could be reinstated at any time. I guess now is that time.
I’m really struggling to get a couple reliable data plans. So far I’ve tried Calyx (sprint) but soon figured out that their sims cannot be moved between devices. Then, I got visible which does work in the max transit duo, but it is super slow at 5mbps. I’ve received an AT&T card from Never Throttled, but so far it has not been able to connect. Never Throttled’s last message was that the service was still “scheduled”. Maybe this sim will work; not sure. I’ve also purchased the new 100GB for $50 plan from T-Mobile, but have not receive the sim yet. Hopefully this one works.
In summary
Verizon - subscribed to visible, but super slow
ATT - received sim from never throttled, but still trying to get it activated; Fingers crossed…
Sprint - using calyx but unable to move sim to max transit duo. Using as hotspot backup.
T-Mobile - waiting on sim to arrive
Does anyone have recommendations for Verizon other than visible? I’ve been reaching out to resellers, but so far either have not received a reply or I’m told this will not work in my device.
One additional point, while visible does work it often fails the “smart check” which causes the connection to go down. I’ve played with various options and even turned the status check option to disabled. I’ve also tried setting TTL to 64 which causes the connection to not be established at all. Overall visible is flaky at best at my current testing location which is south Austin, TX.
If anyone has advice on settings to make visible stable, please let me know. Much appreciated.
It seems that the quality of the Visible service is highly location-dependent. We have tried it in two locations so far - one in the back country, the other in a metropolitan area. The former is as fast as the Verizon service in the same location and truly unlimited, the other is slower and flakier than Verizon (and Verizon itself is somewhat flakey there). My conjecture would be that the Visible connections are more congestion-sensitive than the Verizon service in the same location, and gets hit with damaging deprioritization.
THis is consistent with anecdotal reports on the net - the range of (un)happiness with Visible (even as a phone service) varies greatly.
W.r.t. the TTL=64 issue - I have not seen that in any of the Visible-supported devices we have observed, they all connect just fine (through occasionally it takes quite a bit of time for the connection to be established).
Thank you so much for this feedback. Maybe I’ll hang onto the visible plan for a while and see how it works while traveling to less populated areas. I’m also thinking about getting a PagePlus data plan which is also on Verizon’s network. If I do, then I’ll post the results.
I wonder if that is because of Visible’s higher latency? Visible uses their own back-end, not verizon’s. At one point they only had servers in one or two locations in the entire country so your pings could be very high traveling to that server.
Maybe so. Ping is often over 100ms. I’ve played with the smart check setting to extend the amount of time to wait for success, but the connection is often considered disconnected.
In the metro setting (a MAX HD2 LTE-A with two Visible cards) we had a similar experience. Since the failures seemed to be momentary glitches (timeouts) rather than longer-term outages we changed the check to pings, set the timeout to the max (10 seconds) and made sure the health check interval was longer than the timeout (duh!). We also set the recovery retries to 1, for a fast reconnection.
The connections have been steady since that change (though occasionally still slow - sometimes 20Mbps, sometimes just 1Mbps). The connection speed (or lack thereof) seems somewhat correlated with which bands the modem connects to, so experiment with that. And a better set of antennas than the default paddles help too. A lot.
Thank you @zegor_mjol. Good info. I’m using a poynting 7in1 which should provide around 3db gain. I’m working on a pole that I’ll mount when stationary using yagi antennas in a mimo setup which should offer around 12db gain.
My signal strength isn’t too bad though. It ranges from -50 to -75 most of the time on various bands. I just checked the signal to noise, and it is currently at 11db on band 66. So, not the best ever, but not too bad.
I could live with 20Mbps. I don’t think I’ve seen 10Mbps more than once or twice so far. Most of the time I get speeds quite a bit slower. Maybe I should get up in the middle of the night when the network is less congested and see what type of speeds I get.
working great still here
- sometimes 20Mbps, sometimes just 1Mbps). The connection speed (or lack thereof) seems somewhat correlated with which bands the modem connects to, so experiment with that. And a better set of antennas than the default paddles help too. A lot.