Unlimited Data on the new AT&T LTE Band 14 Network for Rural Work at Home Broadband Internet

NOTE: LTE Band 14 no longer offers any increased throughput in my area. =[

Broadband: 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up, and less than 100ms latency.

Neither fiber nor cable is available where I live. All the fixed wireless providers in Nevada County don’t serve my property. AT&T will provide me a DSL line running at the insanely slow speed of 768kbps. That’s around 90 Kilobytes per second download, and don’t get me started on upload. Although, better than a 56K modem, it’s not fast enough for my needs. Geosynchronous satellite’s latency is too high for real time interaction. Low earth satellite is not available yet. AT&T is the only cellular provider with adequate coverage, however only on the new LTE band 14, all the other bands are spotty. FirstNet LTE Band 14 has been installed all over the Country by AT&T funded by a giant grant from the Federal government. My options are really quite limited. Luckily, I did eventually find something that works. Check out all the internet options in Nevada County here:
jphein.com/internet-opti…
Here is a list of phones that have this LTE band 14:
www.firstnet.com/devices…
A complete list of devices is here:
www.firstnet.com/content…

AT&T does not offer an inexpensive unlimited plan (<$100/month). Thus began my search for someone that did. I started out searching the Wiki article of all the MVNOs. (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) All the folks that resell time on the 4 major USA networks.  I sorted it by the network column so I could filter all the AT&T MVNOs: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li…

Then I found the article below,
www.rvmobileinternet.com…
which pointed me to:
www.cgcellular.com/
Which provides unlimited data on AT&T for $60. Definitely the least expensive I’ve found. *No longer offering this. Instead check out how to get unlimted data for free here: jphein.com/lifeline

All AT&T Wireless unlimited plans supposedly deprioritize your data if your local cell tower is congested after 22GB. I don’t think it happens much in rural areas.

I purchase the Netgear Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) directly from my local AT&T store. Although, now you can buy one used on eBay.

Be sure to get the MR1100-2A1NAS model. The first consumer model does not support band 14. Read about it here: community.netgear.com/t5…

It supports all LTE bands that AT&T uses. It was ~$270 with tax purchased outright. I put it on the $10/month for 100MB BYOD business plan. They waived any activation fee. I was able to unlock it after 60 days, and discontinued the original $10 plan.
www.att.com/deviceunlock…
Although, not necessary to unlock it for any AT&T reseller. I unlocked it in case in the future I need to use it with T-mobile, or Verizon.

Although currently locked to AT&T, I can use it with any AT&T MVNO by changing the APN setting from the web gui.

http://attwifimanager/

By plugging in the USB to my computer, and telnetting into the M1. I played around with the different LTE bands around my home, and various combinations using carrier aggregation.

#Open a terminal
telnet 192.168.1.1 5510

Edited the band selection dropdown:

AT!gstatus?
AT!band=?
AT!BAND=03,"LTE B2 (1900 MHz PCS)",           0,  2
AT!BAND=04,"LTE B4 (1700/2100 MHz AWS)",      0,  8
AT!BAND=05,"LTE B12 (700 MHz Lower B/C/A)",   0,  800
AT!BAND=06,"LTE B14 (FirstNet / 700 PS)",     0,  2000
AT!BAND=07,"LTE B30 (2300 MHz WCS)",          0,  20000000
AT!BAND=08,"LTE B66 (AWS-3)",                 0,  0,          2
AT!BAND=09,"LTE CA (B2+B4+B12+B14+B30)",      0,  2000280a

You need to reboot the router before the changes show up in the web gui.

I connected to each band individually, and ran a speed test. I then ran a speed test with all bands aggregated. Carrier aggregation with Band 14 doesn’t seem to work. Also, the builtin All LTE option doesn’t seem to choose Band 14. However, when I choose it manually, I get a great connection. Simply locking the device to use Band 14 gave me the best speeds.

LTE Band 14 with WiFi turned off sitting on my desk.

Much better than 0.768Mbps DSL, but not quite broadband.

I took it outside and set it facing the direction of the tower.

Sweet! Broadband Internet. I’ll make an enclosure for it, and run power and ethernet out to it.

I will order a pair of yagis. A type of directional antenna. For even faster speeds. FirstNet public safety LTE in the United States occupies two 10-MHz-wide blocks of spectrum at 758 MHz to 768 MHz (download), and at 788 MHz to 798 MHz (upload). So, I’ll be sure The antennas support those frequencies. The M1 has two external TS9 antenna ports.

Technical Specification

I had to order some SMA ends to shorten the antenna cable. You lose signal for every inch long your antenna cable is. I also ordered SMA to TS9 pigtails, and an outdoor enclosure.

I’ll set them up 90 degrees offset pointing at the same tower.  I found my tower location using Opensignal app, then I used Google earth to find the heading. Which was for me 38 magnetic degrees from my house to the tower. I then used a compass app, or google maps to know where to point the antennas. I’m sure it will take some fine tuning. This is a great guide for doing line of sight with Google earth:
startyourownisp.com/post…

{Speedtest}

There are three ways to use the M1 as a modem. You can connect via ethernet, USB, or WiFi. I found the best performance was wither USB or Ethernet with WiFi off.

#Check IMEI

ati

#Restore corrupted IMEI

To unlock your NV:
github.com/bkerler/Sierr…

Installation

• Get python >=3.6 64-Bit~>
• git clone github.com/bkerler/edl/ ~>
• chmod +x edl/modem/sierrakeygen.py ~>
• cd edl/modem
• pip3 install -r requirements.txt

at!openlock?
./sierrakeygen.py -l <challenge> -d MDM9x40
AT!OPENLOCK="<generatedresponse>"
at!nvimeiunlock
#at!nvmeidunlock
at!nvencryptimei=xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,x0
#at!nvencryptmeid=xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx,xx
ati