Your recent TelCel Banda Ancha experience, please.

[DonJuane]

Greetings jesm:

What is the definition of a fool again? I can’t remember, but I also can’t remember to use an external editor to compose posts here because this marks a seemingly infinite amount of times I have typed a full page of information and right before posting, have lost everything. I used to depend on Lazarus for Firefox to hold my text in buffer, but like all good things I seem to catch onto, it has fallen out of support. I simply must remember that I must pre-compose in Word. It’s a hard habit to learn for me for some reason.

OK, back to the modems. So frustrated it is hard to regain momentum but as I recall….

I know just enough about this to make myself crazy. What you have to do is check the frequencies that your modem transmits on (read the mfg. specs) and see if any of them matches what Telcel is using (see https://www.frequencycheck.com/carriers/telcel-mexico https://www.frequencycheck.com/carriers/telcel-mexico )

You’ll also have to get the modem unlocked if it is not already. There are other issues with unlocking a modem, in that while most carriers in the US are now giving free unlock codes to their existing customers, still because USB modems are not as popular as they once were, they may not even know where the unlock code is. For example I recently spent 6 weeks dealing with AT&T to get their top of the line “Beam” unlocked (Sierra Wireless 340U). Unlocking modems used not to be an issue but apparently with AT&T’s new user operated unlock web interface, no one bothered to enter their line of USB modem IMEI numbers with the unlock codes. I found this out after countless phone calls and tests. I ended up having to compose a snail-mail to the CIO of the company. I finally got a phone call 4 weeks later from the corporate office in Oklahoma and the response was, yes we get a few calls like these each year but for the most part no one ever wants to unlock their USB modem (really?). Now here I know I could have paid $40 and received a hacked unlock code online but how could I waste all the time I had already invested? At this point it was personal LOL.

Note I have also in past years used the AT&T branded Sierra Wireless 312U and 320U. Unlocking them was easy because prior to a couple of years ago, AT&T worked on “email to the guy with the paper” principal of finding an unlock code. Today their trained robotic help center cannot work out of the paradigm of their online unlock facility. If it’s not in there, they think, then YOU must be doing something wrong. Not true at all!

So hopefully you can match your modem to see if it works. I do know that the 4G service for Telcel is different than the US carriers and if your US modem is unlocked and is compatible with Telcel, it will only work at 3G speeds or less. I’d really suggest your buying the Huawei model I recommended (with the 501 suffix) while noting that there are vast differences in the various same model numbers of this unit having different suffixes. When I last checked, they could be found on eBay for around $25. And again these are also supported by the ofmodemsandmen.com project. Using one of the palm routers like the GL-AR150 as long as you can supply 5V to power it (via any conventional USB charging apparatus) then you can remote mount this in a weather proof container to better pull in a distant signal. Couple that with the fact these modems also have external antenna jacks, it’s easy then to add an external antenna to pull in even more fringe signals.

Don