CBA850 CBA850LP6-NA Cradlepoint Cellular Broadband Adapter, CBA850 with Integrated LTE Advanced (Cat 6) Modem for All North American Carriers

I purchased my first one of these blind, I couldn't find any real reviews or discussions on them and the only "reviews" I saw where just re-publishing the press release, nobody actually had their hands on one.I'm using these as backups to primary circuits in temporary installations. Sometimes for short-term "war room" locations we will get a local carrier cable modem or other internet service and use a CBA850 for a backup circuit. Sometimes for longer-term locations that need a backup and a secondary traditional carrier isn't available.The plusses:- Once it's online, it seems pretty bulletproof. I've had them up for days and weeks 24/7, and they stay up. If they get hung, they can auto-reset so they start working again.- Can run on PoE, although I wish it were the other port (of the two) that took the PoE as that's usually the one I have going into a switch- Small and light, you can throw it in a travel bag if you need to parachute in somewhere- True to the claim, it seems to work on the big-4 GSM and CDMA carriers in the USA.- Does carrier aggregation, used it on Verizon and AT&T and have received 150Mbit plus through it- It really does work with any US Carrier SIM card. You just plug it in and wait for the seemingly forever for it to re-configure the radios and then it starts working.- One of the ports has built-in NAT so you can plug a wireless AP into it and as soon as cellular is up, people can get a DHCP address from it and start working.The negatives:- It has two SIM slots, so I put in a Verizon and an AT&T in each one thinking I would have sone carrier diversity. It seems that when you have to switch from one carrier to the other even in an automated failover, the switch is LONG. It seems like the radio is doing a complete software re-write, which takes a long time - like 15-20 minutes sometimes. Not quite as cool as I had hoped. I'm guessing that there is only one cellular radio inside and to go from GSM to CDMA it has to completely re-image the radio to work.- The website has a good tech article on how to set it up so that it's passing copper-based network traffic normally and only fails over to cellular if the regular LAN link goes down. The instructions are pretty long, it's functionally that should just be included in the unit by default, I think that is what most people want to use it to do. The web-based management of the unit is pretty good and you can set up priorities for failover but where you think you could just use a LAN port as your primary, cellular as failover, it doesn't work quite like that.- I'm a little worried about the durability of the radio module. I'm frequently pulling it out to switch SIM cards depending on the project. The way you pull the module out of the unit is kind of kludgy (i.e., you grab one of the threaded antenna connections and pull) and it's just a USB connection that the cellular module is using to connect into the base device. I could see where this could get worn pretty quick.,- The antennas are necessary and work well but seem a little wonky. If you thread them on and snug them up, they might be pointed in a random (nonverticle) direction. To point them straight up and down you have to either over-tighten the threaded connectors or loosen them which makes the antennas floppy.Overall there isn't anything on the market that does as good of a job. There are ones that are much cheaper, but the reliability is suspect. When it's used as a critical backup, it may not be used for weeks or months at a time, but then it becomes incredibly important. You don't want something that has to be power cycled every few days to stay up. The other options out there are a little more industrial and have some more/faster features but are well over $1000.

I am not giving 5 stars because the units run very hot. When I called Tech support, because it set off an internal alarm at 70 degrees C, they were quick to replace it and said it is not an unheard of issue. The replacement unit runs hot as well, but so far no alarm. You will need some serious tech skills to set this up with more than 1 SIM card. I'm in IT and it took me a bit to understand the concept. Tech support was responsive. Unit works as it should other than heat problem. I think a ease of use design change is very much in order. The SIM cards are on the inside of the modem. The modem must be removed to replace the cards. I am using 4 different cards (it holds 2 at a time). It would be so much easier if they were accessed with the modem in place. Also, to switch between the 2 cards requires a reboot of the unit. It would be nice if they could adjust so it could swap without a reboot.

DOA - dead on arrival!!! So mad, it didn’t work at all!! We live in Africa so had to have someone bring it over to us. By the time it arrived it was way too late to do anything about it. Super disappointed because we absolutely needed this to do our work here. Fortunately a teammate was able to help us out with something else but we’re still out ALOT of money and stuck with a useless, broken piece of equipment. If I could’ve given negative stars I would have, but 1 star is as low as I can go.

We live in an area with no cable internet, so LTE Wireless is the only viable 4G option. This Cradlepoint has massive networking capabilities, and the Cradlepoint NetCloud subscription that is included in the hardware price was well worth it, as I did need some input from Cradlepoint’s engineers to confirm I had set the crossover for two SIMs and data cap alerts and shutdowns correctly. I am not a formally trained tech guy, but self taught well enough to know how to set up my own complicated network with multiple routers, switches and 200 devices attached by Wi-Fi and Ethernet. My sense from working with the Cradlepoint engineers, though, is that they would have been just as helpful and patient with someone setting up a hot spot for the first time in their small store. I heartily recommend this device for any small business or home unable to access cable. Note that it will still require a wireless contract with Verizon or ATT to connect to internet.