4Ginfo.com - your source of 4G News, Reviews, Products for WiMAX & LTE

Verizon Wireless will be approaching over 185 LTE markets by mid November, and has upgraded almost all of their test vehicles 4G enabled to test all the major networks for speed and coverage. Verizon has around 100 vehicles around the U.S, and these testers typically drive a total of 1 million miles per year conducting network tests, said Tom Badger, director of network systems performance. During the CTIA Wireless Enterprise & Applications trade show in San Diego on Wednesday, Verizon showed off a Chevrolet Tahoe used to test networks in the San Diego area. They've indicated that there are five test vehicles in the Southern California region alone, which typically cover 7,400 miles each quarter making the equivalent of 29,000 voice calls and 142,000 data calls. The only thing missing from the Verizon announcement was the "Can you hear me now?", which was replaced with "March the soldiers past the next hill" from "Harvard sentences".

LightSquared has been battling the FCC for the past few months trying to get their 1600Mhz spectrum approved for their LTE network. The issue resolves around GPS interference and LightSquared even threatened to take legal action if they couldn't use the spectrum they own. They've indicated that it would cost the commercial GPS industry up to $400 million to fix their equipment that doesn't always stay within the frequency their designed to operate on. LightSquared Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben indicated there are around 500,00 commercial precision GPS devices that could be disrupted. In order to make the FCC and the government happy, LightSquared has developed a device that costs between $300 to $800 that will protect GPS devices from potential disruptions. To further expedite the process of getting approved LightSquared has already committed to spending $50 million on hardware to protect government GPS equipment.

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. and SAN DIEGO, Oct. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Verizon Wireless announced today at CTIA Enterprise and Applications(TM) 2011 that its 4G LTE network will be available in 178 markets by Nov. 17. The leader in mobile broadband will turn on its 4G LTE network in 22 new cities and expand the network in four cities on Oct. 20, and will turn on the 4G LTE network in 13 cities and expand in five cities on Nov. 17, making the largest 4G LTE network in the county even bigger.

Now that 4G wireless is becoming more widely available, the doors have been opened on what's possible over a mobile broadband connection. Over the past few years there has been an increasing demand for a "bonding" solution, which is different than traditional load balancing. So, one of the first question is what exactly is the difference between load balancing and physically bonding a connection? Load balancing allows you to take multiple modems and balance the load between them within the router directly. This load balancing method WILL NOT give you a single stream resulting in one faster download and upload speed. This simply balances the load to offset usage when your office needs to support a lot of concurrent users, not to increase a single stream.

Physically bonding allows you to take multiple connections and turn them into one single stream, which allows you to have an increased download and upload speed. This can be incredibly useful for companies that demand a single pipe that offers faster speeds to download or upload real time video, route large amounts of traffic and handle video conferencing. After the connection has been bonded you can use their outbound traffic management feature to optimize outbound traffic and prioritize your VPN traffic. All you need to do modem or cable bonding is a Pepwave Max 700 and a Peplink Balance 210 or higher to establish the bonded VPN back to the Pepwave Max 700 bonding router. 

So how does VPN Bonding work?

There are two pieces of hardware that you'll need to establish a bonded VPN link to deliver a single bonded data stream. The first is the Pepwave Max 700, which should be deployed at the location where you need the larger bonded data stream. You will then need the Peplink Balance 210 or higher, that would be located back at the main facility connected to a high speed Cable connection. The Balance 210 or above is used to reconstruct all the single streams from all of the individual connections on the Pepwave Max 700. After the information is reconstructed, it's sent via a bonded VPN connection back to the Pepwave Max 700 to give the remote location more bandwidth to work with.

You can bond up to four 3G/4G wireless modems, two WAN (cable/DSL) connections and a WAW (WiFi as WAN) connection. For optimal results it is recommended that you use "like" connections, which means you don't want to bond a 3G modem and cable connection together. You technically can bond a 3G and cable connection together, however, there will be more overhead than using connection types that have similar latency. This is why it's recommended to setup specific priority groups based on connection types for an optimal bonding experience.

What is bonding overhead?

To understand overhead, let's take the example of bonding two 3G wireless modems. Two 3G modems would be considered "like" connections, as they each provide similar speed and latency, so we can expect the optimal overhead of 10% loss when we bond them (bonding "unlike" connections - like a 3G modem and a 4G modem - would result in more overhead and isn't recommended). Assuming our two 3G modems each provide 1Mbps download speeds individually, when bonded we can expect approximately 1.8Mbps (1Mbps + 1Mbps - 10% overhead = 1.8Mbps bonded speeds). If you continue to add even more "like" connections, you'll lose another 10% to overhead for each additional modem. Bonding four 3G modems together will result in combined speeds of about 60% the total bandwidth all 4 modems combined are capable of, because of the 40% overhead loss.

As you can see adding additional modems will allow you to enjoy faster download and upload speeds. The traffic can then be distributed across all the links and a variety of rules can be added to direct traffic, allowing you to take full advantage of your bonded connection. You have the flexibility to either add or remove connections allowing you to scale based on different deployment requirements. If you don't have a need for a huge amount of bandwidth, simply bond two connections together to save on costs. Then if you need additional bandwidth, simply add more cards to the setup by simply plugging them into the USB inputs. This solution won't be for everyone, but if you meet the requirements below then you'll be able to configure VPN bonding without paying any additional monthly fees.
   
What are the requirements to be able to bond multiple connections together?

1. Main location where Balance 210 or higher will require a connection with a single static IP or URL
2. You need a Pepwave Max 700 (location where additional bandwidth required) and a Peplink Balance 210 or higher (to establish the bonded VPN)
3. High speed data connection at main office location to provide sufficient bandwidth back to the Pepwave Max 700

If you meet these requirements you'll be able to successfully bond 3G/4G modems, Cable/DSL connections and neighboring WiFi connections. The setup isn't difficult and when you purchase your equipment from 3Gstore you get free technical support for 1 year if you need any help with your configurations. We stock virtually all Pepwave/Peplink products and ship same day up to 3PM CST, if you're in a rush to get things deployed into the field. So, before you know it, you can have this equipment in your hands so you can easily stream your HD video, transfer large files, provide seamless failover and continuity between all available internet connections.

How do I determine which Peplink product to use at the main location?

If you would like more information or to schedule a demo: Click to fill out our Pepwave Max 700 Contact Us Form