Question about Visible

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floflow
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Question about Visible

Post by floflow »

Was thinking about switching from Pageplus to Visible due to the 200GB cap. Can anyone tell me if Visible has any similar cap?
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Didneywhorl
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Didneywhorl »

So far no caps
gscheb
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by gscheb »

My uncle been using visible for over a year. No issues. I have been tethering my visible phone allot no issues.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by floflow »

OK, thanks all.
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BillA
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by BillA »

floflow wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 2:50 pm Was thinking about switching from Pageplus to Visible due to the 200GB cap. Can anyone tell me if Visible has any similar cap?

Visible caps you data with lower overall speeds, where you simply can't use too much... just another way to skin a cat. lol
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by gscheb »

Well I honestly haven't seen slow down on visible. The ping is high. If that doesn't matter to you it is alright. Basically same as Verizon with higher ping. Maybe other areas are different. But in the sticks where I am this is what I am seeing.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by plympton »

I have 2 Visible lines to try and avoid raising anyone's hackles. I haven't noticed any slowdowns except for pretty harsh de-prioritization on the weekends when the towers are congested.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Jon_T »

It really depends on the tower traffic. You will always get the lowest priority on the tower. It’s our main internet source, but can be almost unusable in some of the areas we have gone to. Where we are at currently, it’s pretty much unusable from 7-9pm. I would just recommend testing it out during peak times before you make the switch.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by timc4444 »

I'm currently testing a visible sim and speeds are terrible in the Northern California. The best I got was parked in front of a new tower at 16mbps. Any tricks or account settings to go fast ? NexQ6GO with a EM12g
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Didneywhorl »

Nope, you're likely on congested towers, or check the band. You may be on a 5Mhz band with no carrier aggregation. That may be all there is to be had.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by timc4444 »

Thanks. Got briefly again 16mbps then it was gone in another town.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by toddw »

Have you looked up your tower ID on cellmapper. I would check to see if you can use a directional antenna and line up a different tower.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by plympton »

I'm on month 3 or 4 of Visible, and overall it's the most stable I've had in years. I have 2 lines with some random Party Pay people for $25/line total cost = $50/month.

The 5 Mbps throttle on my load-balanced MR1100's (repaired IMEI's) is tolerable, and even works M-F for Zoom sessions with the kids. Weekends have harsh de-prioritization and go down to almost nothing (0 - 1.x Mbps), but I've been using Resilio Sync from home during the week to sync large files successfully so I'm not streaming media on the weekends.

Again, it's all been working pretty well, and I'd recommend it overall. The upstream rarely gets throttled, so I can usually access my remote desktop and webcams reliably. I have a Proxmox server that sends telemetry back and it's been stable for a few weeks.

So, I'm pleased it's working, but man I'd love for something to "just frigging work" - even Starlink at 2x the price would be worth it to me at this point. For now, I'll take this.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Shadesta »

I've been using Visible wireless and a mofi 4500 sim7 at my parents house since October 2020 for their main internet. they previously had dial up (56k) modem access until the local company dropped them because only 3 other people in their entire service area had dial up and it wasn't worth the providers time and resources to support any longer, at least that is what they said. since then, I would say they average about 20 to 25m download speeds and uploads usually in the 30m range. Early mornings (before 8am) when I have done speed tests at their house they can spike upwards for 60m up and down. I have them locked to band 4. Since October they have been averaging about 110 to 125gigs of bandwidth usage (netflix, Hulu, stuff like that), based off of the internal usage meter in the mofi, how accurate that is I am not sure.

then, my sisters house, I also have her setup with visible wireless and a mofi 4500 sim7. she uses hers for general streaming (Netflix, hulu, etcetera) and business meetings (ms teams / zoom) plus remote (vpn) work server connections. She has had the service for about 3 months now; I also have her locked to band 4 on her closest tower. She LOVES it. They used to have satellite (Dish), holy crap did that suck + data caps and just freaking expensive considering how bad it worked.

Who else... I setup one of my parents neighbors (about a mile down the road) with a visible account +phone and a Ravpower filehub; they do not have many internet facing devices so did not wan't / need a mofi style device...I really think it was the cost that turned them off on that.

all and all, unlimited internet for 3 different families, plus I switched my home phone service over to visible...all for only $25 a month since I have everyone tied to a visible pay party...in my mind it completely rocks! I now have two other neighbors inquiring if I could help/assist them plus a 3rd person at work also starting to ask me questions about visible wireless too.

I had never intended to be a "spokes person" or "authorized installer" for either visible wireless or mofi (I'm not either by the way), but when you help someone out with something as simple as affordable internet in an area where there isn't really any - word spreads around fast.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Didneywhorl »

Shadesta wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 8:34 am I've been using Visible wireless and a mofi 4500 sim7 at my parents house since October 2020 for their main internet. they previously had dial up (56k) modem access until the local company dropped them because only 3 other people in their entire service area had dial up and it wasn't worth the providers time and resources to support any longer, at least that is what they said. since then, I would say they average about 20 to 25m download speeds and uploads usually in the 30m range. Early mornings (before 8am) when I have done speed tests at their house they can spike upwards for 60m up and down. I have them locked to band 4. Since October they have been averaging about 110 to 125gigs of bandwidth usage (netflix, Hulu, stuff like that), based off of the internal usage meter in the mofi, how accurate that is I am not sure.

then, my sisters house, I also have her setup with visible wireless and a mofi 4500 sim7. she uses hers for general streaming (Netflix, hulu, etcetera) and business meetings (ms teams / zoom) plus remote (vpn) work server connections. She has had the service for about 3 months now; I also have her locked to band 4 on her closest tower. She LOVES it. They used to have satellite (Dish), holy crap did that suck + data caps and just freaking expensive considering how bad it worked.

Who else... I setup one of my parents neighbors (about a mile down the road) with a visible account +phone and a Ravpower filehub; they do not have many internet facing devices so did not wan't / need a mofi style device...I really think it was the cost that turned them off on that.

all and all, unlimited internet for 3 different families, plus I switched my home phone service over to visible...all for only $25 a month since I have everyone tied to a visible pay party...in my mind it completely rocks! I now have two other neighbors inquiring if I could help/assist them plus a 3rd person at work also starting to ask me questions about visible wireless too.

I had never intended to be a "spokes person" or "authorized installer" for either visible wireless or mofi (I'm not either by the way), but when you help someone out with something as simple as affordable internet in an area where there isn't really any - word spreads around fast.

Good stuff.

Now you can start building them yourself and save yourself about $100+ per router. MOFI charges about $100-$150 for having the router manufacturer put it together for them. (Which doesn't cost near that ;) )

MOFI SIM7?
The Wireless Haven NEXQ6GO-U router with a Quectel EC25AF modem. Goldenorb free opensource firmware. Done
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/routers/lte-rou ... fi-router/
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/modems/quectel- ... l-ec25-af/


MOFI SIM4?
The Wireless Haven NEXQ6GO-U router with a Sierra MC7455 modem. Goldenorb free opensource firmware. Done
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/modems/quectel- ... l-ec25-af/
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/modems/sierra-w ... at6-modem/


Want to get an even better modem for the price of the MOFI? The MOFI doesn't do well with upgraded modem.
Quectel EM12G modem. Category 12 with 3x Carrier Aggregation.
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/routers/lte-rou ... fi-router/
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/modems/quectel- ... 2-modem-2/
https://thewirelesshaven.com/shop/pcie-m-2/mini-p ... card-slot/



Once you get experience setting these up, there's no sense in holding back your ability and spending way more than you need to.

In your case it's obvious money savings is important.



To NOTE: The NEXQ6GO-U is out of stock, but more are on the way right now (As of 03/12/2021)
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Shadesta
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Shadesta »

So...question then. when I started looking around last year concerning lte / cell phone internet, the one thing that stuck out to me (even those on Wireless Joint forums) where the amount of people that were able to get better, faster, and cheaper routers when compared to the mofi's. But, it seemed like the vast majority of all those people eventually got their accounts blocked or banned from their carriers. When it came to the Mofis, and for the people that actually got them working correctly, I have yet to find any real posting about how their accounts got cut off from the carrier. In my naiveness (I am new to all this) i simply just chalked that up to perhaps mofis bios or internal programing must have been better; but for all I know I am completely wrong...wouldn't be the first time.

Is the opensource firmware/bios software that runs the home built lte modems/routers just as good? Is my perception that non-mofi routers getting banned more often wrong as well?

the thought of saving a $100 here or there while building my own lte router (as long as it actually works) is intriguing to me. I like taking electronics apart and putting them back together. I do not solder or anything like that, but taking out boards, replacing boards/parts is right up my alley.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by gscheb »

For visible I like a WE826 router with a Quectel EM12. It can combine three Verizon bands together. Typically use bands 2, 4, and 5 together.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by busster8 »

First off, I am very new at this. Purchased Visible less than a week ago.
Phone service: No problems. Can not tell the difference between Visible and Verizon.
Data: Slow. Can not get above 5.5mb up/down. This is compared to Verizon 27 down 2 up on the exact same phone, same location.

Bottom line: Visible a much better price, but if you need to get above 5mb in data speed, this may be a killer.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by gscheb »

If you are not using hotspot data should not be called at 5 up and down. Sometimes it gets goofy and does when you first sign up. If you restart the phone or go to airplane mode and again can fix it. Or use a vpn like cloud flare
If none of that works contact visible and have them refresh the sim card they call it. Had to do this one time
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Shadesta »

myself, also once, got a hold of visible via their online chat when I was only getting 5 up and about 5 down. they walked me through all kinds of "shut this down", "turn that on", "reboot that", "lets re-provision your sim", and stuff like that. For me, the one step that worked was when they had me leave the phone on after a reboot, waited about a minute, then pulled the sim card out while the phone was still on (I didn't know you could do that), counted to 15, then put the sim back in the phone and counted to 15 again, then rebooted the phone. after that speeds went back up to around 15m to 20m down and above 20 for uploads. According to the visible tech sometimes sims themselves can get stuck and pulling them out while the phone is on and then putting them back in is like a hard reset for the sim. I have no clue if that is all just tom-foolery the tech was telling me or not. The only other time(s) I have noticed pure hard capped 5u/5d is when I was tethered via a usb connection.
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by 1Keto »

Shadesta wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 8:34 am I've been using Visible wireless and a mofi 4500 sim7 at my parents house since October 2020 for their main internet. they previously had dial up (56k) modem access until the local company dropped them because only 3 other people in their entire service area had dial up and it wasn't worth the providers time and resources to support any longer, at least that is what they said. since then, I would say they average about 20 to 25m download speeds and uploads usually in the 30m range. Early mornings (before 8am) when I have done speed tests at their house they can spike upwards for 60m up and down. I have them locked to band 4. Since October they have been averaging about 110 to 125gigs of bandwidth usage (netflix, Hulu, stuff like that), based off of the internal usage meter in the mofi, how accurate that is I am not sure.

then, my sisters house, I also have her setup with visible wireless and a mofi 4500 sim7. she uses hers for general streaming (Netflix, hulu, etcetera) and business meetings (ms teams / zoom) plus remote (vpn) work server connections. She has had the service for about 3 months now; I also have her locked to band 4 on her closest tower. She LOVES it. They used to have satellite (Dish), holy crap did that suck + data caps and just freaking expensive considering how bad it worked.

Who else... I setup one of my parents neighbors (about a mile down the road) with a visible account +phone and a Ravpower filehub; they do not have many internet facing devices so did not wan't / need a mofi style device...I really think it was the cost that turned them off on that.

all and all, unlimited internet for 3 different families, plus I switched my home phone service over to visible...all for only $25 a month since I have everyone tied to a visible pay party...in my mind it completely rocks! I now have two other neighbors inquiring if I could help/assist them plus a 3rd person at work also starting to ask me questions about visible wireless too.

I had never intended to be a "spokes person" or "authorized installer" for either visible wireless or mofi (I'm not either by the way), but when you help someone out with something as simple as affordable internet in an area where there isn't really any - word spreads around fast.
Is it very difficult to set a mofi up on Visible as I have one sitting around. Mine is the sim 4, I think it's called. Didn't know if Visible would slow it down or boot me off the plan?
I've used the mofi on ATT and Verizon but not in use at this moment.
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Didneywhorl
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Re: Question about Visible

Post by Didneywhorl »

Shouldn't be. Visible is very carefree and simple at the moment.
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