Are Cell Boosters worth the install/price?

Planning to retire this spring and set out on our trawler. Access to internet is a really nice aid in making decisions as far as passages, pretty much a necessity really...

Looking for feedback as to whether these systems are worth the price and efforts involving in installing.

We will just be coastal with offshore passages when weather permits and even then not all that far, but do plan to anchor as much as possible.

Thanks for your input ...

From someone who tests hundreds of cellular devices, antennas, and plans, generally cellular boosters are less useful than really good outdoor antennas combined with a good router.

Boosters used to be one of the only solutions out there, and they still have their place when you have almost zero signal. Any time you have even a moderate signal, boosters make a mess of it. Anything more than that, and they actually make things worse or even can make it unusable.

If you are not that far offshore (no more than 20 miles off shore as an average) then good antennas, cabling, and a quality mobile router will do very well. There are also a number of offshore-focused cellular products that use high gain directional antennas, but they are quite expensive. Depending on your use case and budget, there are a number of options.

stevemitchell said:

From someone who tests hundreds of cellular devices, antennas, and plans, generally cellular boosters are less useful than really good outdoor antennas combined with a good router.

Boosters used to be one of the only solutions out there, and they still have their place when you have almost zero signal. Any time you have even a moderate signal, boosters make a mess of it. Anything more than that, and they actually make things worse or even can make it unusable.

If you are not that far offshore (no more than 20 miles off shore as an average) then good antennas, cabling, and a quality mobile router will do very well. There are also a number of offshore-focused cellular products that use high gain directional antennas, but they are quite expensive. Depending on your use case and budget, there are a number of options.

Click to expand...

Steve- a bit more meat on the bone here would be helpful. OP gave an outline of a use case - coastal cruising. Let's say within 25 nms of a US coastline. The Wilson boosters are in the $500 range so let's set that as a budget.

Do you have specific recommendations for configuration for a good antenna and a router? Guessing this sounds super simple to you, but my knowledge here is akin to a 4-year old child.

Peter

Following.
We take everything via cellular.
Would be nice to have a strong reception.

I had excellent reception with a Poynting Omni 402 MIMO outdoor antenna and a Netgear Nighthawk M1 Cellular Router on a T Mobile Hotspot plan.

Received fast downloads in areas that were previously 0 reception.

Ther are more expensive routers with more features out there like the Peplinks but the Nighthawk got the job done for us. Plus bought a used unlocked Nighthawk from a Forum member for $100.

We've used a variety of boosters and celluar antennas in the past. They do not work as well as the Poynting/Nighthawk combination, especially internet. There were feedback issues between indoor and outdoor antennas.

I’ve been researching this issue, and following Steve’s thoughts carefully as he clearly is very thoughtful and has great expertise. (Indeed, I’ve been trying to hire him unsuccessfully as he’s so busy!)

There is clearly a tradeoff between performance and simplicity though.

Syjos gave a great recommendation for a simple cellular system. Perhaps one has an extra SIM card on another carrier for other locations. This doesn’t cover wifi at the marina though. There are inexpensive solutions for that.

Where Steve’s expertise really lies is how to create something closer to an enterprise grade solution which allows faster and more redundant data streams - but this solution is very expensive and requires network management skills.

For example, what if you want your router to pick the strongest signal among cellular or a marina wifi (called wifi as WAN)?

Or even better, take two or more cellular signals simultaneously and combine their data speeds (bonding) which requires some magic in the cloud (actually compatible equipment on both ends, which for example Peplink can do for a fee). Want to add wifi as WAN into that? Sat? All possible but the equipment isn’t really geared for this so it becomes more expensive and complex. Indeed, figure $10,000 to $15,000 of boxes.

Then you have the issue of running antenna cabling - and runs between the antenna and router should be as short as possible. At 20’ you’ve lost too much signal. There are solutions that combine the antenna and router together in a dome and use Ethernet to connect but not a perfect solution on the other end and it gets expensive as you need a sim injector ($1,500) to manage the sims if you don’t want them in your antenna on the mast. Want to add wifi as WAN - well that’s the problem as devices that support the bonding don’t have enough WAN ports and you need to get power up to the dome, and you etc etc.

Then the literal software management and settings is very complex and needs expertise.

So I’d keep it very simple or hire a pro and open up the checkbook and still be prepared for future complexity.

mvweebles said:

Steve- a bit more meat on the bone here would be helpful. OP gave an outline of a use case - coastal cruising. Let's say within 25 nms of a US coastline. The Wilson boosters are in the $500 range so let's set that as a budget.

Do you have specific recommendations for configuration for a good antenna and a router? Guessing this sounds super simple to you, but my knowledge here is akin to a 4-year old child.

Peter

Click to expand...

Here’s a write up from Steve’s site on his recommendations in increasing order.

https://seabits.com/recommended-systems-plans/

stevemitchell said:

From someone who tests hundreds of cellular devices, antennas, and plans, generally cellular boosters are less useful than really good outdoor antennas combined with a good router.

Boosters used to be one of the only solutions out there, and they still have their place when you have almost zero signal. Any time you have even a moderate signal, boosters make a mess of it. Anything more than that, and they actually make things worse or even can make it unusable.

If you are not that far offshore (no more than 20 miles off shore as an average) then good antennas, cabling, and a quality mobile router will do very well. There are also a number of offshore-focused cellular products that use high gain directional antennas, but they are quite expensive. Depending on your use case and budget, there are a number of options.

Click to expand...

Yep, I have a cradlepoint E300 router with a High Gain Poynting antenna.

bowball said:

I’ve been researching this issue, and following Steve’s thoughts carefully as he clearly is very thoughtful and has great expertise. (Indeed, I’ve been trying to hire him unsuccessfully as he’s so busy!)

There is clearly a tradeoff between performance and simplicity though.

Syjos gave a great recommendation for a simple cellular system. Perhaps one has an extra SIM card on another carrier for other locations. This doesn’t cover wifi at the marina though. There are inexpensive solutions for that.

Where Steve’s expertise really lies is how to create something closer to an enterprise grade solution which allows faster and more redundant data streams - but this solution is very expensive and requires network management skills.

For example, what if you want your router to pick the strongest signal among cellular or a marina wifi (called wifi as WAN)?

Or even better, take two or more cellular signals simultaneously and combine their data speeds (bonding) which requires some magic in the cloud (actually compatible equipment on both ends, which for example Peplink can do for a fee). Want to add wifi as WAN into that? Sat? All possible but the equipment isn’t really geared for this so it becomes more expensive and complex. Indeed, figure $10,000 to $15,000 of boxes.

Then you have the issue of running antenna cabling - and runs between the antenna and router should be as short as possible. At 20’ you’ve lost too much signal. There are solutions that combine the antenna and router together in a dome and use Ethernet to connect but not a perfect solution on the other end and it gets expensive as you need a sim injector ($1,500) to manage the sims if you don’t want them in your antenna on the mast. Want to add wifi as WAN - well that’s the problem as devices that support the bonding don’t have enough WAN ports and you need to get power up to the dome, and you etc etc.

Then the literal software management and settings is very complex and needs expertise.

So I’d keep it very simple or hire a pro and open up the checkbook and still be prepared for future complexity.

Click to expand...

Cradlepoint.com is one of probably several manufacturers of quality gear that does pretty much everything a person might need, and you do not need to be a network engineer to make it happen.

The big trick to connectivity is to prioritize your sources. I do this based on cost for the most part, choosing between two different carriers. If both of my carriers are unavailable then the router chooses the satellite, but it blocks all but the most important devices, and limits or blocks certain kinds of data, with a good example being streaming.

ksanders said:

Cradlepoint.com is one of probably several manufacturers of quality gear that does pretty much everything a person might need, and you do not need to be a network engineer to make it happen.

The big trick to connectivity is to prioritize your sources. I do this based on cost for the most part, choosing between two different carriers. If both of my carriers are unavailable then the router chooses the satellite, but it blocks all but the most important devices, and limits or blocks certain kinds of data, with a good example being streaming.

Click to expand...

Yes, there is cradlepoint.

It’s not about prioritizing sources to me though. What I’m after is bonding several different data sources together to creat fail safe and higher speeds than any could do on their own. That adds complexity as well.

ksanders said:

Cradlepoint.com is one of probably several manufacturers of quality gear that does pretty much everything a person might need, and you do not need to be a network engineer to make it happen.

The big trick to connectivity is to prioritize your sources. I do this based on cost for the most part, choosing between two different carriers. If both of my carriers are unavailable then the router chooses the satellite, but it blocks all but the most important devices, and limits or blocks certain kinds of data, with a good example being streaming.

Click to expand...

What is length of your antenna cable run, and was it problematic minimizing it? Do you have the antenna mounted up on your arch or somewhere closer to the cabin?

I’m looking for a dual radio system for T-Mobile and either Verizon or At&T and trying to determine if I want an integrated external dome system or an antenna and router combo.

Alaskaflyer said:

What is length of your antenna cable run, and was it problematic minimizing it? Do you have the antenna mounted up on your arch or somewhere closer to the cabin?

I’m looking for a dual radio system for T-Mobile and either Verizon or At&T and trying to determine if I want an integrated external dome system or an antenna and router combo.

Click to expand...

The dual sim dome would be great but the peplink hd2 dome isn’t as advanced as their single sim hd1. And using two hd1’s starts creating issues. Ugh.

The length of the antenna cable run isn’t just length of course, it’s how noisy the electronic environment is, and whether you need any connectors.

Maybe there is a protected area closer to place the router,,that doesn’t have heat issues either.

Following.

I need to upgrade. I currently have a 3G Wilson system. A shakespear omni directional antenna mounted on the arch.

It works OK. In SEAK AT&T is king in the small communities.

bowball said:

Yes, there is cradlepoint.

It’s not about prioritizing sources to me though. What I’m after is bonding several different data sources together to creat fail safe and higher speeds than any could do on their own. That adds complexity as well.

Click to expand...

Cradlepoint does bonding. you can bond together different connections, of differing mediums to form a larger aggregate total. It also does very fast switching between sources using rules you set up.

You have to remember though that No device can make a single application go faster than the single stream that connection is associated with.

Here is an example. Lets say fore example you are downloading a movie over a bonded connection. The movie is actually only being downloaded over the single connection that the router chooses, and is limited in it's rate to that connection. so... You do not see the benefit of a bonded connection for a single application.

Where you gain the benefit of a bonded connection is when lets say for example another person starts downloading a movie at the same time. In this case the router can chose a different connection.

Also be aware that bonding can have other challenges. Lets say that a connection is becoming marginal. As long as it's up, the router will send traffic over it based on the rules you set up. This can create some frustrating challenges troubleshooting.

Alaskaflyer said:

What is length of your antenna cable run, and was it problematic minimizing it? Do you have the antenna mounted up on your arch or somewhere closer to the cabin?

I’m looking for a dual radio system for T-Mobile and either Verizon or At&T and trying to determine if I want an integrated external dome system or an antenna and router combo.

Click to expand...

As you know the length of the antenna cable and the number of connections means a lot in terms of losses.

Because of that I put the antenna on the pilothouse roof and the router in a place where the OEM 6' cable would reach.

Technology is changing though. Cradlepoint now offers outdoor or indoor rated adapters that put the radio receiver nearer the antenna specifically to minimize cable losses. For my boat I did not need to do that as I was able to move the whole router.

@ksanders

My impression was that they created a single VPN tunnel from all the available data sources…and could switch amongst them if a packet gets slowed. Then reconnect them at the other end.

Am I misreading that the speed would be higher? At a minimum the effective speed should be higher.

“ Bandwidth bonding combines data at the packet level, enabling you to combine the speed of multiple connections. This is useful for situations where bandwidth is scarce, such as at a remote site, or in a moving vehicle. This technology also enables branch offices to connect to the head office at greater connection speeds.”

Or are they just suggesting that the effective speed is faster as there won’t be packet delays, though it won’t be higher than any one streams max, as you suggest.

bowball said:

@ksanders

My impression was that they created a single VPN tunnel from all the available data sources…and could switch amongst them if a packet gets slowed. Then reconnect them at the other end.

Am I misreading that the speed would be higher? At a minimum the effective speed should be higher.

“ Bandwidth bonding combines data at the packet level, enabling you to combine the speed of multiple connections. This is useful for situations where bandwidth is scarce, such as at a remote site, or in a moving vehicle. This technology also enables branch offices to connect to the head office at greater connection speeds.”

Or are they just suggesting that the effective speed is faster as there won’t be packet delays, though it won’t be higher than any one streams max, as you suggest.

Click to expand...

Unless you are working with a VPN provider that supports building a tunnel, then the part in bold above cannot work. You have to have two ends of any tunnel.

The reason you cannot get any faster single application traffic is that a single TCP connection only has a single next hop IP address out of the router. You cannot break up a connection into multiple streams. The Interior Gateway Routing Protocol will not work like that.

This is not just cradlepoint, it is any network. I have worked with for example CISCO enterprise class networks and we face the same challenges.

ksanders said:

Unless you are working with a VPN provider that supports building a tunnel, then the part in bold above cannot work. You have to have two ends of any tunnel.

The reason you cannot get any faster single application traffic is that a single TCP connection only has a single next hop IP address out of the router. You cannot break up a connection into multiple streams.

This is not just cradlepoint, it is any network. I have worked with for example CISCO enterprise class networks and we face the same challenges.

Click to expand...

Yes, that’s what I was considering, two ends. Using Peplink’s SpeedFusion products on my end and their cloud service where they reconstruct the stream (unless I want to set up my own end point). I think I alluded to this in my first post.

They charge by the year for up to 200mbs with the annual cost tiered by plan for how much data passes through it.

At least that’s how I understand it, but you also are much more expert than I, so I’m willing to learn.

stevemitchell said:

From someone who tests hundreds of cellular devices, antennas, and plans, generally cellular boosters are less useful than really good outdoor antennas combined with a good router.

Boosters used to be one of the only solutions out there, and they still have their place when you have almost zero signal. Any time you have even a moderate signal, boosters make a mess of it. Anything more than that, and they actually make things worse or even can make it unusable.

If you are not that far offshore (no more than 20 miles off shore as an average) then good antennas, cabling, and a quality mobile router will do very well. There are also a number of offshore-focused cellular products that use high gain directional antennas, but they are quite expensive. Depending on your use case and budget, there are a number of options.

Click to expand...

Do you have any experience with Cel-Fi boosters? I just returned from a Montana road trip in my truck/camper where mostly it was little or no cell service, at least for Verizon. This last week I put in a Cel-Fi Go X system but haven't really given it a good trial. I have a 10 year old Wilson booster in the boat which is now obsolete.

bowball said:

Yes, that’s what I was considering, two ends. Using Peplink’s SpeedFusion products on my end and their cloud service where they reconstruct the stream (unless I want to set up my own end point). I think I alluded to this in my first post.

They charge by the year for up to 200mbs with the annual cost tiered by plan for how much data passes through it.

At least that’s how I understand it, but you also are much more expert than I.

Click to expand...

Based on Peplink offering a endpoint for the tunnel then all the other challenges go away. My apologies if i missed that in your post.

Personally I am hesitant to see the need, but Peplink is offering the service so why not use it.

I just did a speed test the other evening on my new ATT 5G service and got in the 160MBPS range, which is mighty fast.

What I like is the fail over features. That is something that is very useful in a moving boat.

ksanders said:

Based on Peplink offering a endpoint for the tunnel then all the other challenges go away. My apologies if i missed that in your post.

Personally I am hesitant to see the need, but Peplink is offering the service so why not use it.

I just did a speed test the other evening on my new ATT 5G service and got in the 160MBPS range, which is mighty fast.

What I like is the fail over features. That is something that is very useful in a moving boat.

Click to expand...

Thanks Kevin, I wanted to make sure I haven't missed anything. Learning about this is like drinking from a fire house.

My use case is going relatively far North, and having several (or maybe one or none) weak signals, so wanting as much as I can get out of it. If I was just in the San Juan's I wouldn't worry about it, as you point out.

I'm thinking of trips to SE Alaska. Now it may well be there is NO connection so back to VSAT!

And to think at my house I get 850mbs down and 650mbs up with a jitter of 3, for $60 a month! A far cry from my first Hayes 300 baud modem. I was so excited when the 1200 baud version came out later.

bowball said:

Thanks Kevin, I wanted to make sure I haven't missed anything. Learning about this is like drinking from a fire house.

My use case is going relatively far North, and having several (or maybe one or none) weak signals, so wanting as much as I can get out of it. If I was just in the San Juan's I wouldn't worry about it, as you point out.

I'm thinking of trips to SE Alaska. Now it may well be there is NO connection so back to VSAT!

And to think at my house I get 850mbs down and 650mbs up with a jitter of 3, for $60 a month! A far cry from my first Hayes 300 baud modem. I was so excited when the 1200 baud version came out later.

Click to expand...

I love my VSAT connectivity, but hate to pay the bill! The new KVH V30 is Fantastic! The traffic shaping really helps minimize the data used.

SE Alaska you are going to want to have two Sim cards. I really prefer to have two separate modems, one for each sim card. Make one Sim ATT and another that is a carrier that roams with GCI which is the ATT competition in that part of Alaska.

I should mention that we’re planning on a March to October Puget to Southeast (Alaska) trip where internet will be required at certain scheduled times every week and certainly desired as much as possible the rest of the time. As with others we’re looking at hardware and plans.

I believe that for both a native Verizon or TMobile plan, roaming on GCI is less than stellar, for data anyways: Verizon roams on GCI’s old CDMA system only (at least as of spring ‘21), T-Mobile is faster but has a fairly small data cap while roaming on GCI’s system regardless of what your home TMobile plan is. If I were going to be up there all summer in GCI areas I would probably buy a prepaid GCI plan/SIM instead of relying on roaming. Moving through from Puget Sound to Glacier Bay throughout the year, it’s hard to find the perfect two carriers for the whole trip (not to mention cross checking Canadian roaming agreements.) I haven’t looked at it yet but a discussion forum comment I came upon suggested that it might actually be better to have a GCI SIM/plan and roam on it in Washington than vice versa [emoji6] I’ll post for the OP and others when I confirm this - at least in theory.

My use case cannot support paying for one of the current sat carriers so it’s cellular for me for our scheduled Zoom classes up there plus other internet needs.

Steve’s info on his website is great.

bowball said:

Here’s a write up from Steve’s site on his recommendations in increasing order.

https://seabits.com/recommended-systems-plans/

Click to expand...

Lots of pictures of hardware. Lots of opinions such as "I recommend this" or "I don't recommend that..". Zero usable information for a novice. I'm sorry, but talking about connecting an antenna to a router makes no sense to improve cell phone reception.

Weren't you guys ever beginners? Or did you come out of the womb knowing this stuff? Any guidance on getting digestible info for a beginner? With diagrams? Next time you complain about lousy instructions, please remember threads like this.

Peter

mvweebles said:

L

Weren't you guys ever beginners? Or did you come out of the womb knowing this stuff? Any guidance on getting digestible info for a beginner? With diagrams? Next time you complain about lousy instructions, please remember threads like this.

Peter

Click to expand...

Look up mobile internet on utube. Tons of video explaining mobile internet technology and couples traveling on boat and/or RV experimenting with, reviewing and explaining the technology.

And Steve's website was extremely helpful to me understanding the advancements to mobile internet above and beyond simple boosters.

Plus Poynting Antenna's website has lots of tutorials on the latest advancements in MIMO cellular technology.

But for people that have never had an interest in technology, I suspect that it would be difficult to catch up with the rapid acceleration in technology.

I have a simple question, echoing Peter's comments above: How does the antenna/router solution work? I assume the router creates a WiFi network on the boat, but does it actually re-broadcast the boosted cell signal as well like my weDrive cell booster does?

If (as I suspect) not, that means you're using cellular data for everything; a bit of a bummer since my cell plan has much tighter restrictions on that versus unlimited data/streaming direct to my phone. Also seems risky since in my limited experience low-signal areas it's much easier to get a signal for voice than data.

Curious how the antenna/router works in practice for calls in marginal areas versus the booster solution.

many years ago I bought an approx 6 foot antenna for cellular, which at the time could be directly connected to my then cell phone. It solved the no signal in key locations. Simple fix.
Nowadays you need to by a separate cellular device, antenna, and router to capture a weak signal and broadcast WIFI. There are some that act as a relay for your phone by amplifying in/out.
Interesting as my original car cell phone had a rooftop antenna and transmitted at 3db, some 6 times the strength of current phones and would be heard 3-4 cell towers over.
Does it seem like we are re inventing the wheel

mvweebles said:

Steve- a bit more meat on the bone here would be helpful. OP gave an outline of a use case - coastal cruising. Let's say within 25 nms of a US coastline. The Wilson boosters are in the $500 range so let's set that as a budget.

Do you have specific recommendations for configuration for a good antenna and a router? Guessing this sounds super simple to you, but my knowledge here is akin to a 4-year old child.

Peter

Click to expand...

Unfortunately it seems like internet systems and use-cases are as complex as choosing an anchor or chart plotter system

I do have a bunch of recommended systems at https://seabits.com/recommended-systems-plans/

Generally speaking, there are a few choices:

Hotspot + antenna - cheap, limited features, not meant to run 24x7

Router + booster - used to be the standard, but not as useful unless you are in zero signal areas all the time

Router + good outdoor antenna(s) - the most common choice right now.

Domes - most expensive solution, and requires more management.

With the router & domes options, you can have a single cellular radio, or dual cellular radios. The dual radios is more popular in the last 2 years due to working remotely, and provides the ability to stay connected almost indefinitely, or at least to survive bad connections. However, it is more costly and complex.

syjos said:

I had excellent reception with a Poynting Omni 402 MIMO outdoor antenna and a Netgear Nighthawk M1 Cellular Router on a T Mobile Hotspot plan.

Click to expand...

Nighthawks are my favorite hotspots. Combining it with a good antenna is a great option. They don't have any redundancy features or other functions if you have an active network or devices, but they are one of the most cost effective solutions. You can swap out a hotspot when the new tech comes out without spending that much.

bowball said:

Yes, there is cradlepoint.

Click to expand...

I no longer recommend Cradlepoint after their software licensing change. Features stop working in their products unless you pay a yearly fee, and they are key things like cellular modems, etc. They are targeting enterprise and large companies, not folks like us. I've also had a ton of issues with their hardware and supporting US carriers.

I wish they would spend more time on marine and mobile in our markets, as I would like more competition for Peplink.

ksanders said:

Unless you are working with a VPN provider that supports building a tunnel, then the part in bold above cannot work. You have to have two ends of any tunnel.

The reason you cannot get any faster single application traffic is that a single TCP connection only has a single next hop IP address out of the router. You cannot break up a connection into multiple streams. The Interior Gateway Routing Protocol will not work like that..

Click to expand...

Peplink has done this for years using PepVPN and more recently as a simpler offering called SpeedFusion. I've also used a few other technologies that do this.... IGRP is not involved.

Ken E. said:

Do you have any experience with Cel-Fi boosters? I just returned from a Montana road trip in my truck/camper where mostly it was little or no cell service, at least for Verizon. This last week I put in a Cel-Fi Go X system but haven't really given it a good trial. I have a 10 year old Wilson booster in the boat which is now obsolete.

Click to expand...

Cel-Fi makes some of the most powerful boosters out there. I have tested a few and they are impressive, but there are (of course!) a few limitations compared to other boosters.

First, you have to choose a particular carrier - you can only boost one at a time. Second, they have had firmware issues with the various carriers that have taken a while to resolve. I would make sure to check that the carrier and bands (4G/5G/etc.) are supported for the one you want to use.

Wilson/weBoost and other similar boosters are less powerful, but they are just simple amplifiers and "pass through" signal, so they can work with multiple providers.

socalrider said:

I have a simple question, echoing Peter's comments above: How does the antenna/router solution work? I assume the router creates a WiFi network on the boat, but does it actually re-broadcast the boosted cell signal as well like my weDrive cell booster does?

If (as I suspect) not, that means you're using cellular data for everything; a bit of a bummer since my cell plan has much tighter restrictions on that versus unlimited data/streaming direct to my phone. Also seems risky since in my limited experience low-signal areas it's much easier to get a signal for voice than data.

Curious how the antenna/router works in practice for calls in marginal areas versus the booster solution.

Click to expand...

A mobile router like Peplink or Cradlepoint has two pieces.

The first is the local WiFi network that you discussed. It creates this so that devices on your boat can connect to it and access the internet, plus each other.

The second is an internet source. Most mobile routers do this by using a dedicated SIM card / plan from your cellular provider, and accessing the internet that way. Many also will allow you to connect to a marina WiFi network and pull it in. Or you can connect it to another resource like satellite, cable modem, etc. if you are at a marina.

The benefit of these types of systems is that you have a permanent WiFi network aboard that everything can use, and you can switch between various cellular providers that work better for the area you are in, use marina WiFi, and other sources without changing everything inside.

In terms of using your cell phone, all US carriers have supported something called WiFi calling for a number of years now. This means that your phone will connect to the WiFi network on the boat, and instead of using it's own radio or a remote cellular connection, it uses your WiFi network to make and receive phone calls, texts, etc.

I am in areas without hardly any cell coverage about 25% of my time, and my cell phone works perfectly with this technology as my big antennas outside pull in a signal and create the WiFi network inside the boat. The phone connects to that network and uses WiFi calling to make calls.

The other nice thing with this setup is that you don't have to crowd around the really small area that the booster works in. Even modern boosters have a very small area that their internal antenna uses.

Hope this helps

ksanders said:

Cradlepoint does bonding. you can bond together different connections, of differing mediums to form a larger aggregate total. It also does very fast switching between sources using rules you set up.

You have to remember though that No device can make a single application go faster than the single stream that connection is associated with.

Here is an example. Lets say fore example you are downloading a movie over a bonded connection. The movie is actually only being downloaded over the single connection that the router chooses, and is limited in it's rate to that connection. so... You do not see the benefit of a bonded connection for a single application.

Where you gain the benefit of a bonded connection is when lets say for example another person starts downloading a movie at the same time. In this case the router can chose a different connection.

Also be aware that bonding can have other challenges. Lets say that a connection is becoming marginal. As long as it's up, the router will send traffic over it based on the rules you set up. This can create some frustrating challenges troubleshooting.

Click to expand...

Bonding has a lot of limits.

Many of the issues you bring up above are resolved with Peplink's SpeedFusion product. You can spread traffic out across multiple connections for a single application, choose various connections based on individual or intra-packet latency, and choose connections based on their real-time latency tested every second or so.