Redundant Internet

My employees that have tried to use it eventually went back to cable because they couldn't have reliable internet for remote meetings.   california may be worse than where you live.  You might think CA would be good for infrastructure buildout and technology since many of the companies are headquartered here but because of environmental and permitting regulations, our mobile network lags many places in the country.

I think having it as a backup sounds like a good plan.  

Jerry

Hey @carlsbad2 - I'm curious, did they try a variety of brands, or Tmobile specifically? 

Conceptually, I would love to have wireless Internet, but like I mentioned and your employees described, it's not all smooth sailing.  At the very least, I would like basic internet services for things like my lighting, fire alarms, and thermostats to keep working regardless of which I'm using. 

Yep, the nodes aren't set to run indefinitely during a power failure. Plus i suspect the times you do lose internet without losing your power, is when the network hardware is being updated/replaced and they just pull the plug to do it.

@elrod  We (myself and my neighbors) have had multiple discussions with them about the reliability of the service around here lately.  They've sent techs out, eventually.  Today I passed by a cable provider and our local Dept. of Transportation trucks working around a fallen oak tree, so I suspect the last time this happened was unavoidable, but still, I'm really in need of a better solution.

@erik_squires
I feel your pain. That’s the reason I am paying $25 a month for cellular service on my iPad. I also have cellular on my home alarm system. I use AT&T and they seem reliable. Good luck.

@spenav Thank you, that's the kind of brand feedback I was looking for.  I'll report back if Tmobile is still as bad as they say it got. :)

@erik_squires I'll check.  I'd hate to give you misinformation.

Just use the hotspot on your phone I have Verizon whenever I need it, it works great.

Thing about power outages and wireless is, cell towers have battery backups. So for shorter outages, you’ll be golden. However when I lived on Vashon Island, after 3 days or so even those backup power supplies went flat. 

Happy listening. 

Not sure how much bandwidth you need but as @jond mentioned, mobile phone Hotspots are great. Guessing if your needs are work or serious enterprise level service, that wont do. Not considering Starlink?  I've no idea what the Tmobile solution is/costs but Starlink is around $120 to $140 per month.    Interested in how your redundant internet is solved as we may build a house in rural VA so will be seeking a "wireless" solution there.  Here in Alaska at my cabin, i can stream video rates on my ATT phone hotspot.  Until tourists arrive and use up the tower bandwidth.   At home it's cable delivery.  

@erik_squires  unless Tmobile has the absolute best coverage where you are at, I wouldn’t go with them. They are very aggressive in their throttling when they think you have used too much. Granted, all carriers throttle, but I have used AT&T, Verizon and TMobile for this for various applications over the years, and with AT&T have been able to watch entire F1 races without throttling, that has not been possible on both Verizon and T-Mobile, with Tmobile being their worst.

also, you can configure it to automatically failover, you may want to look at a SD-WAN device for ease of use.

ATT put fiber in my back yard a few years ago. Internet has been very stable. Had a couple of short late-night outages that I think were maintenance. I run a late schedule. If I’d been working “normal” hours I might not have seen it.

Unlike my Spectrum/Charter experience, upload and download speeds are blazing fast. Seeing email and talking to neighbors, cable in general can still be problematic and customer service isn’t great (which is why I dropped Spectrum completely). 
 

Have had good luck with cell hotspots when I’ve needed them (ATT). But I live in a metro area with good coverage. 

Hey @jond  and @akgwhiz  - That is fine for work stuff, but I also have a lot of home automation, and of course, music and video streaming that goes on.  To use a hotspot I have to re-configure each device independently to switch from the wired network to the hotspot.  Certainly not really a workable solution for my fire alarms, thermostats, lights, etc. but I have done this to get my Roku working.

That’s why I’m going to attempt an automated, redundant, dual-Internet setup. I’ll put a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter before my home Wifi router, and that will connect to my two Internet modems. I hope.

@fredrik222  Thanks!! I'll keep that in mind.  I'm going with them because they are already my cell provider and I know I get good coverage at home. 

Hopefully I won't be using it more than a couple of hours a month. :)

I have a ubiquiti router that allows for dual input (other brands may allow for this as well), this way when signal/connectivity is lost it leverages the backup provider which could be a different carrier ... might be a nice setup for you.

Thanks @n0m1n4l  - I have one coming this weekend. :)

My wife has  a hotspot from T Mobile and we’ve used it more than a few times for home internet, plus, both of our cellphones have hot spot as well.  Neither are the fastest, but they get the job done in a pinch.

I've cut the cord over a year ago and exclusively use Tmobile wireless. 

I'm a network engineer/architect, work 100% remotely and never had a problem with my internet 

I have read somewhere that since Tmobile internet became so popular that new subscribers are not getting the same bandwidth as the legacy user. It's currently 12;58 and my download speed is slightly over 200mb. I have seen speeds up to 300mb. My location is in the suburbs of Atlanta. At any given time 3 or more 4k TV"s are streaming along with other IOT devices, no real issues.  Since I'm a Tmobile phone customer,  internet costs me $30 monthly along with Netflix,  AppleTV and Paramount+..

You can't beat that with a stick.....

Enjoy the Music 

Thanks @gumbedamit 

I don't know whether the issue was originally popularity or other start up hiccups but glad to know it has worked for you.

Well I got TMobile and the EdgeRouter working today.  It wasn't all that easy.  Biggest issue was changing the DHCP for the EdgeRouter to use a subnet that was not going to be used by Tmobile or my other Internet provider.  Once that was squared away and I added rule sets to allow traffic IN via the LAN port it pretty much all worked. 

I can turn off the copper Internet modem and the EdgeRouter picks up on that fairly quickly.  Not sure how well it will pick up when the device is working, but going nowhere though. :)