Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss AT&T USB Connect Mercury

So I'm trying out our new AT&T Mercury internet connection card that attaches to our laptop via the USB port. So far so good. Here at the house we only get 1 bar yet it still runs at an acceptable speed. It's definitely not as fast as our cable internet connection but I must say that the connection speed is not that bad.

Now we'll be able to access the internet from anywhere that we get an At&t signal. Dang they should be paying me for this commercial.

We're headed off to the ranch at 3:30AM tomorrow morning for a wonderful 8 hour drive covering 500 miles to arrive at the opulent ranch gates (ok, ok, it's a rusty old pipe gate that sags in the middle, but heck it's the gate to our own private slice of heaven so that counts for something).

JWHAP and I are hoping to meet up with DIED and DWIED for some good times (we always have good times with Dave and Jean), perhaps some fishing, a dinner, a few glasses of wine, and hopefully no Brussel Sprouts.

With all that has been happing in our lives over the past several months we haven't been to our property since November of last year, and were not able to get the spring field mowing done, so I have prepared myself for the fact that the place won't look great, 3 foot high field grass, neglected trailer, I'm sure the battery will be dead on the Polarius Ranger, but what the heck it'll be good to be there again.

Hopefully with this new internet connection we will be able to check Pond Boss from the pond property, and send you up dates on what we're doing there (don't expect any Brettski level of reporting or accomplishments) perhaps post a photo of a fish or two, and enjoy the ability to stay connected while living in the 12 volt world of the pond property.

We have never had internet connection while at the ranch in the past so I'm looking forward to the convenience. Of course the flip side of that coin is that now I'll be forced to check my business email and the rental property email but what the heck.

Now if I can only make this laptop waterproof so I can check email while floating around the pond drinking a Captain and Coke.... must research the procedures required to water proof a laptop.

I can't wait to jump in the pond for a cool off swim, cast out a line on both my ultra light rig and my fly fishing rig (probably not both at the same time but heck I own the place so I'll do what I want). Smell the fresh scent of the air moving through the pines, listen to the wind russeling the leaves of the oak trees. Dang I can't wait to be there and remind myself why I love being a Pond Meister and to hopefully move one step closer to becoming a full fledged Pond Boss.

JHAP, enjoy your trip to the pond... I have a program called PDAnet that is similar to your setup except it lets you use your Windows based cell phone's internet connection to run through your computer when you hook them up via USB. Very cool stuff! You can access internet all over, even while driving not that's I'd do such a thing...

I was just poking around on the ATT website, looking at the same. Is this the same unit that has all the rebates to make cost = $0?
IIRC, there is a limit to the monthly file transfer of 5 GB. Yes? No? About $60 per month, entry level?

Hey guy's, I don't have a phone at the cabin, but being at a high elevation I get cell service.
Is there a way to set up a video cam using my At&t cell service without costing an arm and a leg, I'd like to be able to keep an eye on the place when I'm at home.

Check out this SITE Might be a good alternative... I use it at work, as a matter of fact I am using it right now to connect up.

Brettski, that is exactly what we have.

But the representative at the local AT&T store gave us this tip that I'll pass on to you: If you go through AT&T (either on the website or at an AT&T store) you will get the device for free but you are locked into a contract (I believe the contract is two years). However if you buy the Mercury internet connection card through EBAY (Ricki found one brand new in the box for $70) then you can go into an At&t store and activate the card or you can activate the card on line. The advantage that this route has is that you are not locked into a service contract. It costs the same $60 per month (and yes there is a 5 GB per month max) but you can cancel the plan any time you want - no contact is signed whatsoever. You can then reactivate the anytime you want for about $30. So if you are like us and have a month or two in which you cannot visit your property you can shut off the service save the $60 per month for the months you won't be using it and then pay the $30 something to reactivate it. Just make sure that if you purchase one on EBAY that you get the 3G card -if you are going to activate the card on line. If you activate the card at an AT&T store you won't need the card. The AT&T rep said a lot of people buy the card online so they don't have to sign a contract if they know that they will have months in which they don't use it.

I was very impressed with the speed, like I said it doesn't rival our cable internet connection but it was much better than I expected. Oh and you can use on card on as many different computers as you want (obviously only one at a time).

Here's the catch...
We want to be able to use it for the laptop for when we travel, and when we get back home, we want to hook it up to the wifi at home and run the PC and the same laptop that we used to travel. I think it's called tethering...or something like that.
We don't want to pay $25 per month for the DSL at home and then another $60 per month for traveling (LNP use). We want to dump the DSL and use the 3g exclusively.
Can this be done?

Thanks for the info CJ, I'll have to investigate more, or possibly satellite internet like Hughes net.

Here is an article about the different types of devices and connections available. Tethering versus mobile broad band.

If you already have a blackberry then that is definately a route to go, however you must make sure that you have the right model blackberry connected via the right provider to get to mobile broadband speeds.

We used AT&T because that service works at our ranch and Sprint does not (Sprint tests slightly faster according to the article but would be useless to us at the ranch).

Bski, according to Ricki, and as best as I can translate geek to english it is possible to connect two computers to this one card but you must have an intranet connection between the PC and the laptop.

If you ask me anything more specific than that we are risking a brain aneurysm.

I'll bet Aaron or Dwight, or one of the other tech savvy people here would know how to accomplish this .

My phone is a Palm Treo Pro. I hook it up to my laptop via USB and I get broadband wireless internet over the sprint network. No extra fees beyond my $15 a month unlimited data plan for the phone. Pretty cool to be surfing the net at broadband speeds while in the RV on a long trip.

I can share the connection through my laptop using ICS (Internet connection sharing). Multiple computers can connect to my computer via wifi and get on the web too. Pretty cool stuff.

JHAP,

When we first moved to this house, we couldn't get DSL. I got the AT&T Sierra Wireless PCM-CIA card, which had a tiny antenna connector on the end. I picked up an RV antenna for it. With the antenna connected, there were very few places in the US where I didn't have service. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to use it here at the house. I loved it when we traveled.

We also networked ours through a router so that Lynda and I could both be on the Internet at the some time. Worked great.

Good luck. Hope it works at the pond.

Ken

Jeff you and Ricki have a great time at the pond. If we don't hear from you for a while we will assume you are having way too much fun or have trouble with your internet thingy.

The now have routers that will accept the usb 3g modems. I have not tried any of them yet as I have a dsl wireless router setup at my house so I just use my verizon broad band when away from home. I have been meaning to buy one to see if they work as good as my dsl one, It would save me $80 bucks a month if I could disconnect the dsl line since I have a telephone coop here were I live.

http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/3GMobileBroadband/MBR624GU.aspx

I was told that a 3g modem was only capable of connecting to one IP addy. For instance, if we use it for the PC at home and use a wireless router like Tim shows above, I could not pop it out of the router and take it with me and use it with my laptop when I'm on the road.
Is this correct?

Brettski,

I'm pretty sure you can use the usb modem wherever you want - either with the router or take the modem with you for use with your laptop when on the road.

Scott

Do your homework before contracting with Hughes Net. The up front investment is several hundred dollars and the latency is almost unbearable. Notice on their commercials that they claim to be faster than dial-up. DIAL-UP! Are you kidding? Use this only as a last ditch option.

Well folks here I sit at the ranch and I'm connected to Pond Boss! YIPPEE! Even with only 3 bars (without our fancy cell phone booster attached we get 3 bars). I have to say that I'm very pleased at the speed of the connection. Certainly not the same as the high speed cable back in southern California but did I mention that I'm connected and posting from the Ranch?!?

I'm very happy with the connection. I'll create a new thread with this trip's trials and tribulations....

Update for Brettski (and anyone else that might care).

I have mix reviews of the At&t set up. Last night during peak time (after about 5:00 PST) I was not able to access the internet. Ricki was able to at about 6:30PM but it was running slow. Today while posting in another thread it "timed out" while attempting to load a page. I am using Firefox as a browser and have turned off auto loading images during peak times.

Off peak it works well and I'm satisfied with the speed but during peak hours it has not been great. Right now we are using it at a location on our property that doesn't have the best signal (1 or 2 out of 5 possible bars). We are going to move to another area of the ranch that normally has better signal strength and see what happens.

We have also purchased a cell phone signal booster but have yet to set it up. We'll see if that improves anything.

Overall I'd say this is better than not having internet access and we are running on 12 volt (with an occasional recharge via a portable generator). If we had full time 110 service then I'd probably use a satellite dish service.

So in summation it's better than no internet and is good speed during "off peak hours" but slows to a crawl during peak times. Perhaps once we improve the signal strength I'll be happier about it. I'll let you know.

Agreed! Hughes Net is junk.

There are a lot of Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISP) popping up in rural areas right now. You might do a search for one in your area.

So we tested the signal at various locations on the ranch. The best we get without the signal booster is 2 bars and it's only running 2G "Edge" service. While driving around the county today we received a 3G signal. We found out by watching the lights on the At&t device that it indicates whether it's running 2G or 3G. Looks like at the ranch all we will get is 2G. At&t told us we would get 3G here - WRONG.

Well by my math 2G is better than 0G so I'll settle with this for now.

We're not sure whether or not the signal booster will bump us up to 3G or not. Time will tell.

We were not able to access the internet at all on Sunday. Even though we had 3 of 5 bars the device was not able to "locate the data service." Fortunately for the device I was not able to locate my sledge hammer.

I just been trailing a similiar service from Verizon where I teather my phone to my labtop with a USB cable. The phone acts as a modem using EVDO (3G data service over CDMA). I get great sevice in the trailer at my farm in rural SChuyler county Illinois. Works all time of the day and days of the week. Now the kicker it is only $30/month for 5 Gb.

AT&T coverage at my farm sucks, maybe consider changing to Verizon