Cellular Routers

The SARC group is considering trying cellular based internet for remote access to our various facilities. We tried two years ago but abandoned the project due to the monthly cost involved. This time, things have changed. 1NCE has $10 sims that don’t expire for 10 years. You get 500 mb included and after that, each 500 mb costs $10. Since these would be emergency use only, the cost of perhaps a couple of hundred dollars for each emergency is totally acceptable. There is no monthly cost at all during non-emergency times, and up-front cost is only $10. I have used these for a couple of years, now, with total success.

My thought is to get a cellular router, something like this pictured below, for around $250, stick a 1NCE sim in it, and see if it works. If it does, we’re gold. If not, I return it on Amazon. Here is a direct link to the device, but there are many alternatives we should also consider. The exact device is almost irrelevant. The core idea of using cellular Internet is what we need to decide on.

@Mike @JohnXB

So, we tried it tonight. One club member had need for a phone in a remote location. He brought in the cellular router and an IP phone. I configured them and we tested tonight at the OTC.

The short answer is that it worked, but it’s slow at the OTC. It was plenty fast enough for the phone and he can achieve his goal with no monthly payment using this. For more general Internet usage, it was too slow.

The issue is that, at the OTC, Rogers is fast and everyone else is slow. If 1NCE happens to roam on Rogers, you’ll get blazing speeds. The problem is that, as far as I know, you can’t control which network 1NCE uses. They roam on all of them, and they get to choose. I’m going to email 1NCE to see if there’s a way to force one provider over the others.