cell booster

[BeaverIslandGuy]

Seems like the closest thread section to post.

Thought I would let people know that we make two significant, and helpful, technology upgrades this summer.

First is a cell-phone booster called Zboost. It is basically an amplifier for cell phones and broadband cards. Our coverage here has been spotty, and broadband speeds less than desirable. With this nice piece of technology. all cells and cards are at 5 bars and broadband speeds are noticably faster.


The booster is an amplifier with both external and internal antennas. We mounted the outdoor one line of site to the center harbor cell tower. the inside one is mounted were we do most of our work. (fyi for cell only coverage it can be in an attic, but for broadband you want the internal one within 3-5 feet of your broadband card for optimum performance.). Have used with three different broadband cards thus far (all Verizon). All improved significantly.

I will try to get a quantified speed assessment and post, but can tell you we are most pleased.

The second item is a MIFI broadband card from Verizon. Still assessing if it is right for me, but it is slick. It is basically a broadband to WIFI converter. Why is this important? With a broadband card, normally one machine at a time hooked up to the card. With this, it transmits a finite range WIFI signal and you can hand 5 devices off of it. So far, we have three computers with no noticable decline of service. Have been told we could configure our printer to WIFI as well, but have not tried that yet.

This is definitely more convenient than a typical card as once I set up the card (and to be fair it took me 2 hours with Verizon on the phone to do it), it has been flawless with 54 Mbps speeds (computer WIFI limited, I think) within 20 feet of the base station. Three comments:

a) Range is limited. Works well within 30 feet of the unit (and per the above, the unit needs to be within 5 feet of the booster so I can't "walk" with it), but tested it a 60 feet and could not find signal at all.

b) Nice small unit. size of a credit card but 1/4" thick. Does not need to be plugged into the computer after set-up at all.

c) Powers up fully upon plugging in. This may eventually make it a good driver for WIFI enabled webcams - when we get to that Need to figure out how many pics I can upload to an FTP site without blowing my monthly data limit (Hint - any help on typical file size type info would be great - that part of this is new to me.)


Really happy with the zboost, which took about 2 hrs to install (of which half was trialing several locations). For those of us not able to access cable or DSL, this makes transmit speeds good. Now if only Verizon would update that tower to 3G......

Will keep all updated on the MIFI.

PS. It's technology, and could be webcam useful, so I thought here might be a good place. If you think I should post this under another section, please let me know.

[Slickcraft]

B.I. guy, thanks for the post, I did not know about the MIFI card. We use a VZ broadband card on Welch Island as well as for travel and at home when the power is out. There have been many times when we wished that the connection could be shared. Let us know how it works out.

BTW, we and visitors use the laptop with broadband card for web assess on a regular basis and we have never used more than 1 G of our 5 G monthly allowance.

[brk-lnt]

You should return the Mifi and get a Cradlepoint router:
http://cradlepoint.com/

Works with multiple cards/carriers, has a stronger wifi signal, and no limit on how many people can connect at a time. Depending on the model you get, they run about $150.

Also supports DynDNS, and port forwarding for webcam usage if you like.

[Island Girl]

A broadband wireless card or imbedded card in a captop can share the connection with other devices, either wirelessly or connected via ethernet cable. It is a little convoluted to set up in Windows but works just fine.

I like the idea of these newer devices because they are easier to set up.

Now.. to try to use my embedded verizon card to share the internet with Wii... that is the object today!

IG

[Slickcraft]

Verizon has a pretty good tutorial on the MIFI card at:
http://learning.verizonwireless.com/...200/index.html

[Orion]

I agree with brk-lnt. I've been using the Cradlepoint all year and it's pretty seamless. Connectivity out on my dock over 100' away; shared connection over wifi with several computers; and the ability to just plug in any USB broadband modem and play. It manages the modem connection, including timing out at your specified interval of inactivity.

[BeaverIslandGuy]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

You should return the Mifi and get a Cradlepoint router:
http://cradlepoint.com/

Works with multiple cards/carriers, has a stronger wifi signal, and no limit on how many people can connect at a time. Depending on the model you get, they run about $150.

Also supports DynDNS, and port forwarding for webcam usage if you like.

From you and Orion, if I am understanding it correctly, I can plug any USB broadband card directly in to the cradlepoint router and achieve the broadband/WIFI connection? If so, that might work well here. A few questions/comments.

a) does it auto-on when power is applied (useful for a winter connection for a webcam?

b) While I agree the range on the MIFI is not great, and posted as such, one of the advantages of it is size. If I understand the cradlepoint website, even the "travel" modem/router is 9x6.2 and 1.5 lb. (Do I have that right?) While this might work here as a fixed point, not sure it fits my definition of a travel size device. As I stated, one of the reasons I thought the MIFI was slick was its 3.5"x2"x.25" size. Much closer to my definition.

Do I have the size of the cradlepoint devices right? Do they make a true "travel" version that I just have not found?

c) Imbedded broadband cards. My brother was using one last year, which is what led us to look for the zboost solution. Head to head, his range (HP laptop - verizon broadband) was much less (and slower) than mine.


thanks - will keep all posted as the experiment continues.



Slickcraft. Thanks for the data usage figure. Do you have a webcam running?

IG or one of the other webcam guru's out there - what would you estimate your data upload is per month, what would a typical pic file size be, and how often are you transmitting? Thanks in advance.

[Slickcraft]

Originally Posted by BeaverIslandGuy

Slickcraft. Thanks for the data usage figure. Do you have a webcam running?

No webcam, just all of our and our guests internet access on the island.

I suspect that you could adjust the webcam frame rate to fit the 5 GB limit. A 10 min frame refresh rate at 30 KB per frame would roll up to about 1.3 GB per month.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by BeaverIslandGuy

From you and Orion, if I am understanding it correctly, I can plug any USB broadband card directly in to the cradlepoint router and achieve the broadband/WIFI connection? If so, that might work well here. A few questions/comments.

a) does it auto-on when power is applied (useful for a winter connection for a webcam?

b) While I agree the range on the MIFI is not great, and posted as such, one of the advantages of it is size. If I understand the cradlepoint website, even the "travel" modem/router is 9x6.2 and 1.5 lb. (Do I have that right?) While this might work here as a fixed point, not sure it fits my definition of a travel size device. As I stated, one of the reasons I thought the MIFI was slick was its 3.5"x2"x.25" size. Much closer to my definition.

Do I have the size of the cradlepoint devices right? Do they make a true "travel" version that I just have not found?

c) Imbedded broadband cards. My brother was using one last year, which is what led us to look for the zboost solution. Head to head, his range (HP laptop - verizon broadband) was much less (and slower) than mine.


thanks - will keep all posted as the experiment continues.



Slickcraft. Thanks for the data usage figure. Do you have a webcam running?

IG or one of the other webcam guru's out there - what would you estimate your data upload is per month, what would a typical pic file size be, and how often are you transmitting? Thanks in advance.

Yes, it is auto power-on, and uses minimal (about 5W) power draw.

One thing to keep in mind when using any of these devices to power a webcam is that the wireless provider generally does not like you doing this, you may find that incoming connections to the camera are mysteriously blocked at times. Outgoing connections (such as if your camera can upload a picture at specified intervals) generally works fine though.

The cradlepoint travel routers and the Mifi are about the same size. I travel with mine almost every week, it certainly fits my definition of portable. The one I use, CTR-350 (http://cradlepoint.com/products/ctr3...oadband-router) , is about the size and weight of a deck of playing cards. I've used it several times to connect to remote cameras, and also to put up an ad-hoc camera that remote people can connect to.

Webcams have different streaming rates and image sizes. A camera with a D1 imager will stream at about 56-200Kbps, depending on frames-per-second and compression settings. A camera that supports H.264 streaming will use far less bandwidth than the older stuff using MJPEG. An image snapshot should be very small, 20-30KB in most cases. My camera sends a 7 second video clip when there is an event, and those clips average about 180KB in size.

Mega-pixel cameras will use a lot more bandwidth, and most have poor low-light performance as well, so be careful what you go with.

[BeaverIslandGuy]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

The cradlepoint travel routers and the Mifi are about the same size. I travel with mine almost every week, it certainly fits my definition of portable. The one I use, CTR-350 (http://cradlepoint.com/products/ctr3...oadband-router) , is about the size and weight of a deck of playing cards.

Thanks. Silly me for looking at the Cradlepoint travel device as listed (the CTR-350 is listed as a mobile device, which was the brick. I will check this out. You stated you have 100 ft+ range with it?

Thanks for your help.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by BeaverIslandGuy

Thanks. Silly me for looking at the Cradlepoint travel device as listed (the CTR-350 is listed as a mobile device, which was the brick. I will check this out. You stated you have 100 ft+ range with it?

Thanks for your help.

Yes, I've gotten about 100ft between the CTR-350 and my MacBook Pro. YMMV.