Anyone familiar with UbiFi for Internet?

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SlyFerret

Minister of Fire
Feb 12, 2007
1,537
Delaware, Ohio
I've been using a point-to-point fixed wireless ISP for quite a few years now. In the past year though, their network has become extremely congested in the evenings and on weekends. It has me looking for an alternative.

I came across UbiFi a few weeks ago, but I haven't been able to find much info/reviews from users sine the service is very new. It is LTE internet over cellular, but they use a commercial style modem and offer an unlimited data service for home internet use. They specifically say streaming TV/Movies is OK on the site. I spoke to a support agent yesterday and was told that my 150-300GB/month data consumption (based on what my current ISP reports) is perfectly OK on their service.

Does anyone here use, or know somebody that uses, UbiFi for home Internet access?

I'm curious what the experience has been like, and if there has been any throttling, even though their site specifically says that they don't do that.

-SF
 
I hadn't heard of this one so thanks for the topic! From a quick search it looks like it runs on the AT&T network. I may give it a shot since I'm tired of paying VZW $300/month for 4 lines, 2 with the old grandfathered UDP plans.

The upfront cost for me would be about $400 with the external antenna but if I can save $100/month on my cell plan it would be worth it.
 
Make sure the carrier signal is reasonably strong in your area. With the weak AT&T signal we have I doubt we would get good enough bandwidth for broadband HD movie viewing. This is in spite of AT&T saying we have good 4G coverage in our area, yet we normally see only 1-2 bars on our phones.
 
their will be a big difference in signal strength between their box and a cell phone. But from my experience you do need a good strong signal to get LTE.
 
Well I just placed an order for it, including the router and outdoor antenna. Friend of mine has AT&T and stopped by and had 2 bars of LTE here so I figured with the outdoor antenna we should be good.
 
Mine will be here tomorrow, they shipped it faster than I expected.

Yes, they told me that it runs on the AT&T network. That is good for me, as I have clear line of sight to an AT&T tower about a half mile from my house.

I will probably keep paying for both services for a couple months. I don’t want to cancel my current provider if it turns out I get throttled on this new service.

-SF


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I got my my modem hooked up. I've got a rockin' signal (-73dbm), so speeds look great! 52 down, 24 up on my initial test.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7388485072.png

I work in IT, so I'm a bit particular about how my network is set up. I already have a router and all my equipment/devices configured the way I want them, so I didn't want to use the built in router features in the MoFi box. I took the time to switch the modem into bridge mode ("IP Pass-through") so that all of the router features are disabled and it just acts like a modem. Plugged my existing router, it pulled an IP address, and I was off and running.

I'll post back my thoughts in another couple days once I've had some time to play with it.
 
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I got mine set up tonight I'm seeing 5 down, 10 up which is great compared to the 1 down, 1 up I get with VZW in the best spot in the house. Signal strength went from -114 to -103 just by hooking up the outdoor antenna. I plan on ordering a 50' extenstion to get the antenna up above the roof line which I'm sure will help.

Either way we tried it with streaming Netflix on 2 Fire TV's and a tablet with 3 phones connected just browsing and there wasn't any issues with the TV's set to the "Better" streaming quality.

I'll keep running it for a couple weeks and see how things pan out.
 
So far so good here too. Been really solid.

I haven’t watched any Netflix, but I’ve watched some YouTube, and the kids have been watching Hulu during the heat of the day.

I’m anxious to see how it does with the MotoGP race stream tomorrow. Their streaming system doesn’t handle network issues as well as the big players. I frequently had buffering and pixelation issues with my previous provider.

-SF


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So what is your recurring cost of the new service? It's internet only, correct?

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Correct internet only, 79.99/month. No tax listed for PA.

They charge an extra $20 if you need a public IP address (common for folks that work from home). I haven’t found any apps that don’t work right without it other than accessing my plex media server from outside my network. I’m not willing to pay an extra $20 for that alone.

-SF


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The MotoGP race stream worked great. Better than it ever has with my fixed wireless provider. No buffering or noticeable bitrate changes.

At this point, I think it is going to work great for us. My only concern now is if our usage falls into the acceptable range of “unlimited”.

-SF


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The MotoGP race stream worked great. Better than it ever has with my fixed wireless provider. No buffering or noticeable bitrate changes.

At this point, I think it is going to work great for us. My only concern now is if our usage falls into the acceptable range of “unlimited”.

-SF


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That's more than my Internet only from Verizon!

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So I ran a test last night comparing UbiFi to my VZW speed. I'm pleased to say the least. It's quite a bit faster and clearly VZW is deprioritizing the grandfathered unlimited plans, I'm really considering switching to T-Mobile since I ran numbers yesterday and would save about $110/month.

pixlr.jpg
 
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My first month has been great. My trial is up and my subscription renewed for my second month. So far, I am very happy. If things go this well for the next few weeks, I’ll be canceling my old provider at the end of this billing cycle.

-SF




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I have a neighbor who has been using UbiFi for several months now and remains happy. He works from home for a large technology company, so he uses it for video conferences, and quite a bit of streaming. He was assured that there wouldn't be any problem with 500 Mb/month.

Anyone here have any updated experiences with it? I will probably switch to UbiFi after we move sometime next year.

PS: Prices appear to be up to $89.99/month. I wonder if this is all accounts, or just for new accounts? That's a possible downside to the month to month nature of this -- they could raise the price at any time. It still looks like my best option.
 
I haven't had any issues so far. Every so often in the evening we'll have a little bit of buffering but it hasn't happened often enough to complain.

Speed seems to average out around 8mpbs which isn't stellar but isn't terrible either for where I'm located.

My account still shows 79.99 as the subscription charge.
 
I will keep my eye out for the next payment to process and see if the price has remained the same.

So far I have been extremely happy. No complaints at all.

I, too, work in the tech industry, though I don’t work from home full time anymore. The few days I have worked from home, my VoIP and video calls have been better than they ever were with my fixed wireless provider. Also, Skype video calls with friends and family have been more reliable, too.

YouTube TV on my chromecast looks fantastic for football games, as does Hulu. We don’t have Netflix anymore so I can’t comment on that.

-SF


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Is this the wifi with the small dish mounted outside? I am on satellite and pay the same per month for 1.5 down and 256 up. and pings that make game play impossible. I need something new, and this may be just the thing.
 
Is this the wifi with the small dish mounted outside? I am on satellite and pay the same per month for 1.5 down and 256 up. and pings that make game play impossible. I need something new, and this may be just the thing.
Your situation was the first one that came to mind when reading this thread. It would be great if it gave you a better connection. But then we would lose you to online gaming. lol
 
Your situation was the first one that came to mind when reading this thread. It would be great if it gave you a better connection. But then we would lose you to online gaming. lol
Maybe. I used to be heavy into gaming, but that went south when I moved here.
I am not sure I'd get back into it, but I know I would not have to worry about using up my bandwidth limit watching porn ;-)
 
Is this the wifi with the small dish mounted outside? I am on satellite and pay the same per month for 1.5 down and 256 up. and pings that make game play impossible. I need something new, and this may be just the thing.

No small dish, really depends on what AT&T coverage is at your location. I added a directional antenna to help keep a strong signal but it functioned without it.

Ping is typically 30-60ms depending on time of day.Yagi_on-a-mast_1024x1024_574b6aa1-68de-4b05-9937-a4ee8edf09f4_1024x1024.jpg
 
Thank you for the reviews. I have been searching for internet options as we live into our new house and stumbled across UbiFi. Who would have thought one of my favorite forums would cover this topic?

I think I will give UbiFi a try.
 
It’s been working great for me still. My family is sitting on the couch watching last nights World Series game 3 that I had YouTube tv record for me.

Speeds have been stable at 30-50 megs. I have yet to detect any throttling in any month since I have had the service.

If you have good AT&T LTE signal in your area, you probably won’t be disappointed.

-SF





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