RE: Estimated LTE Data Utilization in Failover Scenario

[Kenny Taylor <kenny.taylor () kccd edu>]

We did some testing with VZ and Sprint earlier this year.  Sprint provided rates around 20-25 mbit down and 2-3 mbit up 
*if* it was an area with decent coverage and the connection was on band 41.  Much lower rates on band 25/26.  We 
noticed that their regular unlimited hotspot plans perform well up until the 50 GB mark.  The evening after we'd hit 
the 50 GB mark, throttling kicked in and pinned the connection down to about 128 kbit, regardless of cellular network 
congestion.  VZ seems to throttle the connections after hitting the 25 GB mark, but it's gradual and appears to be more 
deprioritization than shaping.

We tried VZ in a couple of rural areas and quickly discovered that there wasn't enough bandwidth to those particular 
towers.  We could pull 20 mbit down regularly around 6:00 am, then by lunch time we'd get less than 1 mbt down.  We 
deployed an ISR router with LTE NIM and a linux box running iperf hourly to do that testing.  Don't base your rate 
estimate on afterhours testing, and I'd echo the other comments that the cellular network will get slammed during an 
outage/disaster scenario and will undershoot your estimates.

Worth noting, I can pull 45-60 mbit on my T-Mobile phone all day long.  Does anyone have experience using T-Mobile 
plans for LTE backup?

Kenny

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces () nanog org> On Behalf Of Paul Amaral via NANOG
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2019 9:54 AM
To: 'Shaun Dombrosky' <SDombrosky () blackfoot com>; nanog () nanog org
Subject: RE: Estimated LTE Data Utilization in Failover Scenario

In my experience with LTE is that it's never enough. We have bank branches with 20Mbs metro lines and on rare occasion 
when that circuit drops 4G LTE will provide you with 10mbs at best also note that latency is much higher which can mess 
with ipsec/VOIP etc. I don't think you can pick how much bandwidth you will get with 4G LTE. From the testing I have 
done with VZ 4G I get 10mbs down and 2/3 up with a -65 RSSI. It's still better to have LTE for a backup then not to 
have it. 

I have used cradlepoint and now switched to cisco ISR 1111. I find the crandlepoint to be not as reliable as the cisco 
ISR. The cradlepoint will get extremely hot, go down for no reason and has poor signal compared to the ISR 1111 with 
LTE.  I would stay away from the cradlepoint and find a Cisco LTE solution. 

Again like I said a backup of any kind even if not sufficient in bandwidth is better than nothing.



Paul

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces () nanog org> On Behalf Of Shaun Dombrosky
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 12:06 PM
To: 'nanog () nanog org' <nanog () nanog org>
Subject: Estimated LTE Data Utilization in Failover Scenario

Good Morning,

First time NANOG poster, apologies if I breach etiquette.

Does anyone have any first-hand data on how much data a small-medium business (SMB) can expect to consume in a failover 
scenario over a 4G/LTE connection?  Retail, under 50 head count, using PoS, maybe cloud accounting software, general 
internet activity, 8 hour time period.  Wonder if anyone is using a Cradlepoint or SD-WAN solution that could pull a 
few quick numbers from a dashboard for me.  I haven't had much luck in my searches.

Appreciate any info anyone can provide.

Thanks,

Shaun Dombrosky
Data Network Engineer



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