Netflix buffering with 3 WANs
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@madbrain Well, as I'm located in Sweden, I'm afraid my selection of carriers is not going to help you much...
But there are alternatives of course, like US Cellular who have a few metered options and should have good coverage in the Bay Area. There are others as well, like mymobilex.com which is a newcomer running off of Verizons network. And you could also shop around for prepaid subscriptions where there is often a metered alternative.
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@Gblenn thanks. My home is in a bit of a dead zone for cell signals. Not even voice calls get through, let alone data. I rely on WiFi calling. That's why I was so surprised the Verizon 5G service worked. They are using one of the UWB bands and that lone band seems to cover my house when literally nothing else does.
The other carriers signal is better in the rear part of my lot, uphill. But my office is down below in the front. And that's where the router is.
Will look into US cellular. -
@madbrain If you are to rely on wireless, it's a good idea to look into wiring your house so that you can be more flexible wrt positioning of the FWA device.
On Android phones there are apps that let you see all the signals that the phone can handle and you could figure out the best spot for the device. Ideally you would try to use an outdoor unit and pull an ethernet cable directly from that to pfsense WAN port. Such a device could even be placed on a pole if needed and some of them can use PoE so you only need the Ethernet cable.
And if you haven't done that already, you could make sure to put AP's at strategic locations to improve wifi coverage.
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@Gblenn My house is unfortunately not wired for Ethernet, fiber, or anything else. I have had cabling contractors come and tell me it would likely be impossible to run cable it indoors without essentially destroying the house.
Running cabling outside would be very ugly as there are a lot of rooms and 2.5 levels. I'm not saying I will never do it but even outside would be quite pricey. We are talking hundreds of feet of cabling and conduit if not thousands.The closest indoor location to a usable cell signal for T-Mobile is the upstairs master bathroom. Not sure about AT&T as it's been 14 years since It tried them. BTW US Cellular doesn't have coverage in San Jose. Verizon is the only one currently willing to sell a home Internet plan at my address, and it actually works. All 3 main operators (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon) will sell a cell phone plan with data, even though it essentially doesn't work. The coverage maps are simply inaccurate.
As far as Wifi, I have been using mesh systems for a while.I used to have Orbi. Now I have some Unifi APs, 6 of them. 2 or wired, the other 4 meshed. Phones gets a stable Wifi connection everywhere indoors, not as good (slower) outdoors. Unfortunately the Wifi calling is still dicey, even when the phone is in a direct line of sight and 10ft away from the Wifi AP. I don't know why the cell phone often still initiates calls on cell network, despite the priority being set to Wifi calling. I have to set it to airplane mode to really force it to make the call on Wifi. Otherwise on cell I will get long silent pauses, of 1 second or more every 10 seconds. Incoming calls are usually received on cell network also and not Wifi. If the phone is in airplane mode, I just miss the call - it goes straight to voicemail. Which is not that different than when it's not in airplane. Many times calls go straight to voicemail too.
What does work very reliably is my wired VoIP with voip.ms and a Grandstream HT802 ATA, connected to Panasonic DECT 6.0 wireless base with a total of 6 handsets. Those perfectly cover my entire property for voice, inside and out, unlike either the cell or Wifi signal, which are both not reliable for making or receiving calls. I should probably just forward the calls from my cell phone to that VoIP line when I'm home. It's a bit of a pain, though. My MVNO can do that with an HTTPS request. Maybe an app could get the GPS location and initiate that request depending on whether I'm home or not ... And turn airplane mode on/off while we're at it, though, though that would probably require rooting the phone.
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@madbrain I hear you, it's not without challenges to get your house "up to date" with new tech. I went through the process of cabling most of our house about 20 years ago. Fortunately I used Cat6 cable which now allows me to get 10Gig in most of the outlets around the house, which is quite an upgrade compared to when it was built in 1928...
But I get the pont the contractor was making although you don't have to wire every single room though. And if you start looking, you may find ways to actually make it work...
The challenge I found was moving from one end to the other without visible cabling, as well as between floors.
So do you have an attic, or at least some such space which you have access to? Or perhaps there is a basement, or both even?
They are typically good places to pull cables from one end to the other without anything being visible in the rooms. And from both such areas, you can likely get to any of the rooms on the adjacent level (up/down).I used built in closets in some rooms to get a cable down from the attic into the rooms on the floor. And the same can be done going up from the basement perhaps. Then you might even be so lucky that you find closets in the "same location" in two rooms on top of each other. A perfect place to cross from bottom to the top...
Otherwise I sort of assume there is a vent drain for the plumbing in the house? Which then should go all the way from the foundation to the roof. It might be built into a small "duct" of sorts, which could be a good place to drop cables all the way through from attic to basement/bottom... Not the pipe itself but the space it uses...
Anyway, if you start looking around, you might find a way to get at least one or two cables to where you want them. Even if you rely on wifi for most of the house, at least then you can have one or two AP's that are wired, and of course the FWA device in the right location can make a big difference.
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@Gblenn I have looked, and there really is no way to run the wiring inside. There is no basement (not common in California), no attic, and the house is built on slab, meaning no crawl space either. And it's not just one cabling contractor telling me wiring cannot be added inside. I would have done it a long time ago if it was practical. Not sure what you mean by a vent drain. There are vents in the garage and in a utility room for the 2 gas furnaces and 2 gas water heaters. I'm not aware of any other vent.
I do have a 10Gbe LAN as well between two rooms - my office and home theater. CAT6A might be required for the distances involved in my home. It would help get faster speeds for the Wifi APs to wire them, instead of meshing them wirelessly. But it still wouldn't solve Wifi calling issues. Those seem to be software/firmware related problems between the Samsung phone and/or the Ubiquiti APs. And they happen even with a wired AP in my office, not mesh. There is actually another option which is to use Bluetooth between the phone and Panasonic DECT 6.0 phone base. Bluetooth has a very limited range, unfortunately, so that implies leaving the smartphone near the base. Not practical. -
@madbrain Well, with no attic or any other type of crawl space, I suppose you don't have many options. I guess one could dig a "trench" close to the wall to hide a cable that goes around the house, unless there are concrete patios or similar, blocking that option... Another possibility would be to use the gutters to hide cables behind them...
Perhaps vent drain is not the correct translation, but what I meant was the vent for your plumbing. When flushing for example, air needs to come in from somewhere. But with no attic, that is a moot point anyway...