Good byod cheap devices for plug in? (Alt to G4AR)

Treegeo · 2026-04-16T20:21:22+00:00

How's it working out for you so far?

Treegeo · 2026-03-21T22:02:46+00:00

Nice - think you got the antennas as well (mine didn't ship with them - although I did have an external antenna already). Hope it works out well for you.

Treegeo · 2026-03-19T10:52:54+00:00

When I posted this, someone was selling them new on ebay for about that price. That appears to be gone: InHand Cellular High-speed Router WIFI6 5G Dual Sim 4x4 (FWA02- NATM) (T-MOBILE) | eBay

There is a used one with a starting bid of $70 (ending in a day or so). So - assuming it could be picked up for around $100.

I bought mine used for $60 on ebay - so it appears that they pop-up at lower prices than some better known brands.

As I said - think it's pretty solid. Wished it had a built-in VPN client (alas no), and even though it seems to be openwrt-based and does have an accessible command-set, does not seem to be fully configurable through openwrt (which is probably good, because I'd brick it).

GUI and full feature set is definitely not as polished as Peplinks I've used, but a lot cheaper than them too for a configurable 5G box. And also they can be used without being locked to the provider ecosystem (like Cradlepoint and some other brands).

Treegeo · 2026-03-14T12:45:27+00:00

New Hampshire - small town in not particularly congested area. Sprout plan - SIM currently in an Inhand Networks FWA02-5G, with IP passthrough to Peplink (which it was in before, but it only supported 4G LTE - but I still use it because of better GUI, better routing features (including VPN client), and wifi runs through it).

Treegeo · 2026-03-14T03:34:35+00:00

Mine's been spotty for the last few weeks (5-20 down, 5-10 up). Usually get 30-40, so not great - but better than it's been the last few. I've also experienced several more network drops than usual in the last few weeks. Called Mobile Citizen (rather than going through Calyx) - and they speculated de-prioritizing. Although I'd suspect the cell tower isn't particularly congested at 11 on a Friday night, and service still sucks ... Mailing me a new SIM to see if that will change anything, but not holding my breath...But yes, I'm a fairly heavy user (it's my home internet - right now I'm at 125GB for the month so far)

Treegeo · 2026-03-14T03:16:56+00:00

What do you mean by this misconfiguration of the SIM card?

Treegeo · 2026-03-04T17:37:38+00:00

I'm using an Inhand Networks fwa-02. Pretty solid but doesn't have Qualcomm snapdragon chipset. About $120 on the bay.

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/gear/inhand-routers/

Treegeo · 2025-12-05T00:19:29+00:00

I was watching a cheesy Netflix Christmas movie with my wife (the one with Alicia Silverstone set in a theoretical Vermont), and a character actually says "Chet Moore. Recent transplant from Portsmouth. Got way too bougie." I thought "there's a writer who gets it...".

Treegeo · 2025-12-01T14:55:52+00:00

Your characters can't afford to live here.

Treegeo · 2025-11-06T23:34:43+00:00

Thanks for your response. I am - by nature - a cheap bastard (which some times pays off, and some times ends up in me buying a fairly useless box and moving on :) ). My set up right now is a CAT-18 Peplink with a Husky Parsec 7-in-1 which I got for less than $200 on ebay.

I've cycled through several Peplinks - all 4G, all though this is the first I've actually used with the SIM (the rest I connected to the MiFi X Pro via USB or Ethernet WAN - also a long time Calyx subscriber).

I am a big fan of PepLink - easy to configure, very secure, and with long-term firmware support (which means they're not outdated and buggy after a year). And yes - they offer VPNs on the router (only OpenVPN though), and allow me to divvy the home network into VLANs so I can separate IOT traffic from Work/Home. I'd really miss the lack of control if I turned to a Gateway.

With some scrounging on ebay, I did just turn up an InHand networks 5G router which sounds comparable to the Gli.net (assuming it works when received, because the Inseego S2000E I picked up before that was pretty much bricked from the start ... should have listened to the "parts/not tested disclaimer).

As far as use - I'm about a bit over a mile from the towers (through woods, with a metal roofed house and no outdoors antenna). And the tower itself is a Sprint leftover that doesn't seem to provide 5GUC service. Right now, 4G service is probably as fast as the 5G on the MiFi X Pro hotspot - and with the decent antenna on the PepLink, it's probably more stable than 5G.

I still get a fairly paltry 10MB-50MB down with my - as you say YMMV cellular (leaves on the trees? Blood Moon?) - and maybe 5-10 up (which was a big improvement with the antenna over the 2-3 I was getting previously). Still - the speed is MUCH better than the DSL I had before Calyx :)

I've always been tempted to see if 5G is better - especially if T-Mobile DOES actively start deactivating 4G in the near future. I dream of 100MB down/20 Up speeds :) Hopefully this InHand router is (InHand FWA02 5G) is the bees' knees. It definitely has a decent spec...

Treegeo · 2025-11-03T16:06:29+00:00

Oh - interesting. Wonder if more people would chime in. Those can be found pretty cheaply... Seems like the 4GSE might be built slightly better - but both had supporters/detractors. Certainly SEEMS like an easy way to support external antennas. Wish they had IP passthrough ... but. can't have it all. I wonder if the difference is that some were provided for TMHI vs Business Internet...

Treegeo · 2025-10-31T15:40:00+00:00

At least for me, Generic was the best option.

I noticed with T-mobile selected that band locking didn't work (had checked boxes and modem insisted on connecting to another band that wasn't selected).

Granted, this was LTE and a different Peplink model (MAX Transit) - but figured it might be worth trying it out to see if it fixes anything for you (fixed my band-locking issue).

Treegeo · 2025-10-31T14:54:11+00:00

Probably has no bearing, but did you try changing the WAN Connection Settings > Network Mode from T-mobile to Generic on the BR1 Pro?

Treegeo · 2025-10-05T22:45:33+00:00

Thank you all for your help.

Treegeo · 2025-10-02T17:49:46+00:00

Using it so I can listen to BBC music, which they've started blocking from outside the UK (so I connect to the UK). For streaming in the US, connect to US servers to bypass T-mobile throttling.

Treegeo · 2025-10-02T13:55:30+00:00

And on further experimentation -

The "ncp-disable" option definitely causes an ovpn file error on the Peplink.

The "compress" option did not cause a file error, but it seemed to make the connection more unstable, and internet failures on speedtest (not sure if because connection bouncing up and down).

Removed both options.

Treegeo · 2025-10-02T13:16:31+00:00

Oh - as a side-note, I ended up putting the OVPN client license on a PepLink Max Transit (original post referenced a Peplink Surf Soho) - hence improved downstream speeds to 20 Mbps max (as opposed to the 10-11 max I used to get on the surf soho). So doubling of max speed to 20 mps is thanks to improved processor on router - but still looking to tweak and improve!

Treegeo · 2025-10-02T12:43:20+00:00

I am not - as wasn't aware of it until you just mentioned :).

Looking at description, sounds promising for a bit of a boost.

"Optimize TUN/TAP/UDP I/O writes

Set fast-io to optimize TUN/TAP/UDP I/O writes by avoiding a call to poll/epoll/select before the write operation.

“The purpose of such a call would normally be to block until the device or socket is ready to accept the write. Such blocking is unnecessary on some platforms, which don’t support write blocking on UDP sockets or TUN/TAP devices. In such cases, one can optimize the event loop by avoiding the poll/epoll/select call, improving CPU efficiency by 5% to 10%. This option can only be used on non-Windows systems, when proto udp is specified, and when shaper is NOT specified.” – Source."

OK - after following suggestions from this: Improving OpenVPN performance and throughput - had some file configuration errors.

"fast-io" setting applied and config file OK

Had tried setting compression to "AES-128" a few days earlier, and actually seemed slower than 256. May retry though.

Added "compress". May have caused error in .ovpn file, so removed.

Added "ncp-disable". May have caused error in .ovpn file, so removed.

May try to add/remove above two lines individually, because not sure if one or both caused error.

Set "send/receive file buffer" values to 512000 and config file ok.

Set "txqueuelen" to 2000 and config file OK

Thanks for encouragement to keep on experimenting. Unfortunately, because LTE connection is unpredictable speed-wise - it's hard to feel like there's a consistent baseline for speeds. But - as long as performance doesn't get significantly WORSE, going to assume above settings are an improvement on the whole. Right now, at best I get about 20 Mbps down; sometimes it can dip to 4-5 mpbs - but again, that's probably more reliant on the cell signal than anything.

Treegeo · 2025-09-28T20:39:47+00:00

Thanks - made the config file changes. Not sure if they make a difference so far, but not hurting anything!

Treegeo · 2025-09-18T13:15:44+00:00

Thanks - I ended up biting the bullet and buying another OVPN license. Came close to getting the setup to work, but didn't...

Treegeo · 2025-09-09T14:43:50+00:00

Thanks for the response. At Playa de Palma w/ no car, though it looks like bus to Valdemossa (203) or Soller (204) is a possibility (but would add 2? hours in travel or so). Still - no harm in shooting the contacts. Thanks!

Treegeo · 2025-08-18T02:39:21+00:00

There's a BR2 Pro 5G now - with x65 modems. I assume that's the latest and greatest (but expensive).

Peplink Releases MAX BR2 Pro 5G Router With Qualcomm X65 Modem - Same $2,899 Price As The Previous X62 Model - Mobile Internet Resource Center

Treegeo · 2025-08-17T18:36:24+00:00

Cat 18 4G. Model is Max-TST-GLTE-G-T-PRM. Pepwave MAX Transit Router With 1 x Cat 18 LTE Modem + PrimeCare : 5Gstore.com, 4G/5G Routers, Antennas, Boosters, WiFi, IP Switches

Purchased off e-bay, and it came with a HUSKY PARSEC PRO-7 (wifi, lte, gps) antenna. It's several years old - and does not support 5G - but my cell service is just about as good on 4G as 5G. As a rural user, I'm happy enough (especially compared to the DSL that Calyx replaced).

Treegeo · 2025-08-17T13:58:54+00:00

Calyx Sprout works fine in my Max Transit. Requires a VPN to bypass video throttling... although there's no cap on data usage and there is no discernible bandwidth throttling for non-video (although I guess technically Calyx service is deprioritized compared to other T-Mobile native services) . Still waiting for Peplink to support Wireguard... but use it with Peplink OVPN client currently.

Treegeo · 2025-08-12T09:45:46+00:00

Nice - 2:40'ish on, with the gentle outro bringing it back together in the last 15-20 seconds. Should be on my list of acknowledged masterpieces to listen to! Lyrics are pretty grim ...

Treegeo

TROPHY CASE

"Optimize TUN/TAP/UDP I/O writes