Coverage of 4G and 5G routers, gateways, modems, and wireless IoT connectivity. Articles explore deployments, signal optimization, failover, and remote-site communications for industrial and mobile applications.
This post is the second in a two-part series about failover strategies. It covers VPN connections, traffic spikes, and remote troubleshooting. See Part 1 of Cellular Router Failover Strategies.
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Organizations are rarely able to continue their operations unimpeded when their primary wide-area network (WAN) connection goes down. Most businesses now run their workloads from the cloud, and employees use an increasing number of cloud-based applications to collaborate with other workers, process payments, and share files.
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Curious how cell phone signal boosters work? Well, understanding the answer depends on how much you know about cellular radio communication. First, we are going to talk about the very basics behind cell phone communication, then get more into signal boosters and how they work. If you’re already familiar with the basics, feel free to skip to the discussion below.
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The Pew Research Center conducted a study in February 2019 to determine who in the U.S. uses a cell phone. Not surprisingly, they discovered that 96 percent of Americans use some kind of cell phone. With cell phones in the purse or pocket of nearly everyone, people today take cellular communication for granted. Until that is, they cannot get reliable service — a problem that people using landline phones rarely experience. Low signal strength in the service area is the most common reason for poor reception. Fortunately, signal boosters solve that problem and restore solid, reliable communication. Let’s look at how they work and how you can tell if a booster will help.
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Video surveillance is vital for businesses and public spaces. Building a remote outdoor surveillance system presents significant challenges, especially one that is off-grid and requires wireless communication. How will your video be recorded and accessed? How will you power the cameras? Which cameras should be used? There are plenty of options to consider when installing cameras on a cellular or wireless local area network (WLAN). Three of the most significant issues to resolve are bandwidth, power, and security.
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Sure, Internet of Things (IoT) is great. It’s easy to see the potential benefits of data mining and better analytics. None of that makes it easy to implement. IoT networks tend to be large in both size and throughput, and it presents plenty of challenges from the design standpoint. One of those challenges is incorporating older equipment into IoT networks without spending a fortune. For a while, 2G and 3G worked well for many networks, but major carriers are phasing them out. LTE Category 1 (Cat 1) is a replacement for legacy 2G and 3G. Cat M1 and NB1 are not far behind. These new, low-bandwidth technologies help many IoT networks expand capacity for surprisingly little money. Continue reading…
Everyone loves to rave about the benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, few people appreciate the demands IoT systems bring to the table. Cost management and network design are hard enough, but the bulk of IoT field devices operate at minimum power and data flow. Many were deployed in control and automation facilities decades ago and support only simple communication functions. This creates a unique security challenge. IoT can force a designer to incorporate anywhere from hundreds to millions of endpoint devices without being able to secure them on an individual basis. There are many approaches to solving this problem. One feasible solution is to create private networking layers to minimize risk without spending exorbitant amounts on each IoT device. Continue reading…
At this point, most IT pros and network engineers do not need to be convinced of the value of the Internet of Things (IoT). Instead, the focus is on finding practical ways to implement the technology. With explosive levels of adoption, there are many options out there. Some manufacturers are simply rolling Wi-Fi into everything. While this can work, it’s not economical over long ranges. The obvious alternative is to use LTE. Although, LTE data plans can get pricey. In the end, managing IoT over long distance amplifies the standard problems of large networks. Technologies used to connect IoT devices are commonly called Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN). LPWAN may implement legacy cellular technology or direct radio communication. Continue reading…
