I live in a semi-rural community with few internet options.

T-mobile become an option so I decided to give it a shot. It’s a decent price/performance option between DSL and cable internet.

As you can see I’ve made a fully custom hanging shelf with a piece of scrap 1/4" plywood and twine for optimal placement.

I then cracked open the unit and installed external antenna adapters. I placed a directional antenna on the roof.

I kept experiencing complete connection dropouts which became worse over time. After some research I found that other users said that the problem was the unit overheating.

I placed a 120mm fan on top. I wired up a barrel jack so it can be plugged into a normal 12v adapter and it just stays on all the time. I might clean this up and use a temperature controller in the future. It’s currently held to the unit with scotch tape.

Everything has been stable for now. Maybe I’ll find some more ways to tweak it to get better performance.

  • Laconic@beehaw.org
    4·
    2 years ago

    I used to rely on my very old grandfathered in unlimited Verizon plan + a phone purchased direct from Samsung so I could use the Wi-Fi hotspot. It worked great 6 years ago when I moved to the country, but it’s been getting worse and worse as more people moved to the area.

    I switched to starlink about a year ago. I have a lot of trees though so I needed to get the dish up high. So I bought a Rohn antenna tower and installed it. I had occasional short outages early on while the satellite network was still growing, but that’s pretty rare now.

    I thought I had a pic on my phone, but I’ve gotten a new phone since then.

    • Grizzzlay@beehaw.org
      2·
      2 years ago

      lol I wondered if anyone still had the original Unlimited Verizon plans that they tried so hard to get rid of. Have you completely gotten rid of it now?

        • Grizzzlay@beehaw.org
          4·
          2 years ago

          Wow, well props to you for making Verizon hold to their original agreement. I remember hearing about court cases where they tried getting out of it.