# Help with cellular bonding



## TheLauz (Aug 14, 2020)

Hello everyone, this is my first post..I have recently began doing some side consulting work, my background is in live broadcast operations and electronic retailing...I have experience with many bonded cellular solutions, Dejero, LiveU, TVU, Liveshot, etc...my most recent client has a unique situation...they want to be able to stream from anywhere without relying on the venues internet. They typically hardwire into to a modem or use WIFI, but after a few failures then want a better solution. I suggested some kind of bonded solution...it turns out the client only wants to stream to instagram, which means to execute an elevated multi-camera production you need to employ a third party work-around called yellow duck. Our current solution is to feed yellow duck from the OBS encoder. What i have come to realize is that most bonded solutions do encoding as well, IE LiveU Solo, VidiuGo etc...but I just want an access point, no encoding needed, I may also want others to be able to log on, so if it can create a hot spot that would be great, so others can access comments, emails etc... I am currently looking at Mushroom Networks, Peplink, MineMedia to name a few...also Teradek Link Pro, not to be confused with the VidUGo 

Wondering if anyone has advice on this topic and if it matters if the bonded solution has an encoder or not...OBS info states you can not use an external hardware encoder in conjunction with it? Not sure where i read this or if it is true...very difficult to test with having the bonded solutions on site...cheers, let me know!


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## macsound (Aug 17, 2020)

What I'd be most worried about is Yellow Duck.
I don't know who makes this app or api. They don't have an about page. Basing your whole project on this no-name "connector" isn't probably the best idea. FB/ Instagram might kill or change what makes this thing work any time. Which based on their current efforts to unite Messenger (which is probably because of backend simplification) they may also be making other unification decisions soon.


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## FMEng (Aug 17, 2020)

I think, the Peplink Max HD series will do what you want.
https://www.peplink.com/products/max-hd-series/

I have purchased Peplink products through https://5gstore.com/

It's industrial strength equipment, with a commensurate price tag.


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## TimMc (Aug 18, 2020)

FMEng said:


> I think, the Peplink Max HD series will do what you want.
> https://www.peplink.com/products/max-hd-series/
> 
> I have purchased Peplink products through https://5gstore.com/
> ...


Cradlepoint has the gear but it looks like they're more into selling their cloud network these days.


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## TheLauz (Aug 18, 2020)

Thanks all...I appreciate the feedback...I am narrowing it down to Peplink and Mushroom networks...I would love to go with the VidiuGo or a LiveU solo as they seem to be the most affordable, will either product generate an access point or hotspot or are they just essentially bonded cellular encoders? IE they are all toted as "streaming" appliances. I have questions into their sales and support as well. I am trying to work with the client to convince them that they should be steaming on other platforms that are more conducive to a bigger production set up...hopefully they see it my way...cheers!


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## Ben Stiegler (Aug 19, 2020)

I've sold and managed Mushroom networks way back when they were 5 people ... it's good stuff. BUT

- if you can't get clean upstream bandwidth at a site (cow pasture? Parking lot? ) then the rest of the toys won't help much. If an audience is allowedto be present, they will gobble up tons of cell tower bandwidth ... all those background apps chugging away even if no one is looking at their phone. I would dig into the root causes ofprior failures using venue bandwidth. In most cases, that is goingto be your most solid option. Then you can use a cradle point or similar for a bonded 2nd path. Note ... in IT, the model is called SD-WAN and the edge device used for bonding and monitoring is something more specialized. These can be provided on an aaS basis.PM me to get into more specifics.

- I prefer to use Restream.io as my exit portal from OBS ...for the monitoring. / mgmt features, even if I'm only going to one customer facing platform. However, some hard moments when following client preference to "only stream to FB live" ... things get ugly if that one destination is having a bad hair day. Unless you are paying for a streambroadcasting service, you have no real reason to expect it to be working at your air time. So I am now adamant about giving the public at least 2 destinations to watch from. Bonus upside ... FB might be ok on the west coast, but totally gagging in the U.K. ... or Boston.


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## RonaldBeal (Aug 19, 2020)

I have an associate who just finished a "50 states in 50 days" tour, with 4 output cellular bonding (LiveU) Even with that, there was no consistency... some places we expected good signal, but bandwidth tanked, other places we expected none and got huge bandwidth. I think that will be the long pole in the tent... short of GOOD hardwire, there will be no guarantees.


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## longreachnz (Oct 17, 2020)

Hi @TheLauz, 

I have been doing this very thing in New Zealand for about a year. I work for a full service arts industry technical supplier and every time we have to do a gig which is outside of our usual venues, we run into internet difficulties, especially with livestreaming which literally everyone wants to do these days because of covid and travel restrictions. I ended up designing a celluar bonding mobile setup which I now hire out to other event companies to ensure a high speed broadband connection anywhere in cell range! This is software based, so no expensive dual celluar modem boxes, it's all modular for exceptional failover and redundancy, I didn't want to just rely on a single box which could go wrong. I use 3 lte modems with different carriers connected to a laptop or computer, with a bonding vpn software solution installed and a single ethernet cable out to a router. This works very well and has different modes depending on what you're doing and how reliable you need the connection. Happy to answer any questions!


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## daveg123 (Mar 3, 2021)

Hey @longreachnz,

Can you elaborate on your setup? I'm putting something similar together in the US, working through issues with Pepwave gear and OBS Studio dropping frames. I saw your post on another forum, looks like you were working through similar issues. Did you get them resolved? Was it an MTU issue? FEC? Wan Smoothing? Did you find a combination so that OBS stopped dropping frames?

Also let me know what your hardware setup looks like. I have a unit from Peplink (dropping frames currently), but I'm also looking at Mushroom Networks.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Dave


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## longreachnz (Mar 3, 2021)

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your post! So with regard to the OBS dropping frames issue, I haven't yet tracked down the cause of this, but I suspect an MTU issue. It's only really the FEC sub tunnel that OBS seems to have issues with, I have streamed successfully just using the bonding or WAN Smoothing tunnels, so I will avoid FEC for now until I can do more testing...

Until a few months ago I was using a more modular system for cellular bonding, which was a Linux computer running Speedify and Connectify, the software only based bonding VPN option. From there the bonded output would go into a Edgerouter and then into my Unifi line of products (switches/APs) for a solid distribution platform. This worked great but in my experience there was reliability issues on the livestreaming side of things, as Speedify has the annoying habit of changing it's public Speed servers without notice, and if this happens during a stream you lose the connection for up to 10 seconds, which is far from ideal and results in angry clients! Like Pepwave their system is built on cloud based end points but these are over subscribed and subject to frequent changes and reboots. Which is fine for basic internet or guest Wifi but not something mission critical like livestreaming.

My solution this year (start of 2021) was to go for the Pepwave ecosystem, I own a MAX Transit duo. This has definitely streamlined my operation as the setup and packdown time is a lot quicker, and there is far less config and testing to do, you basically fire up the router and you're done! My testing so far shows that Pepwave hands down beats Speedify for reliabilty during livestreams. There is no Speedfusion Cloud endpoint in NZ sadly though, the nearest one is in Sydney which works great and has good latency, but for that extra resilience I have built my own Fusionhub in a local data centre in the city I live, giving me a dedicated server, fantastic latency and a gigabit connection out to the internet. It's just a shame the Max Transit duo can only do 100mpbs of bonded traffic, which is a major bottleneck for me as the LTE bands here are very good. I'm already considering upgrading to the MBX or something similar.

It's early days but I'm very happy with my Pepwave product, and it's super easy to integrate with my existing Unifi gear for a wider Wi-fi coverage.
Any further questions give me a shout!

Thanks


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## daveg123 (Mar 3, 2021)

Thanks for the reply.

Are you able to stream with OBS over the Max Transit Duo? Or have you moved on to Wirecast/something else? I have a Max Transit Cat 18 unit (very similar to yours), and OBS Studio drops frames when I try to stream through the Max unit, which is connected directly to a cable modem (180 down/10 up). 4500 kbps stream, 1080p30. No FEC or WAN Smoothing enabled, no SpeedFusion cloud enabled, we stripped all that away and I still drop frames like crazy just passing through the unit. When I plug directly into the cable modem it works just fine, no dropped frames.

One last thing that should be good news to you: SpeedFusion end points will get bumped up to 200 Mbps on 3/4/21. You're ahead of me time-wise, so it might have happened already where you are. The e-mail reads "From *4th March 2021* onwards, all valid care plans and applicable license top-up plans will come with up to *200Mbps *speeds."

Let me know more about your successful setup, thanks.


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## MNicolai (Mar 3, 2021)

TimMc said:


> Cradlepoint has the gear but it looks like they're more into selling their cloud network these days.



I've been pretty happy with Cradlepoint on 4G. I use it for remote noise monitoring terminals I set up at construction sites, so I can log into the noise meters remotely and monitor or listen to the noise levels as they are logged to the cloud. I haven't tried using it for streaming, but for my uses it's been pretty reliable.


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## ndp (Mar 4, 2021)

I will throw another rec in for Cradlepoint. We have several hundred installed in fire apparatus (at my other job) and they perform very well in demanding situations. Generally I've been pretty impressed with them.

- Nick


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## longreachnz (Mar 4, 2021)

@daveg123 I have the Max Transit Cat 6 version running FW version 8.1.1. I did notice while experimenting with the FEC tunnel, I did have to completely reboot both the router and the computer I was using in order for OBS to behave again AFTER trying the FEC tunnel. I have successfully got it working with WAN Smoothing and regular bonding/hot failover and directly off a WAN connection with no VPN.

And yes, I got an email about the Speedfusion Cloud update yesterday, great news! Not that it makes much difference to us Max Transit customers but hey! Even with my FusionHub I can barely get above 90mpbs total throughput. But then I do have DPI turned on for Zoom webinar traffic steering which is a known CPU zapper! I have tried the Duo with FEC on and off using my Teradek Vidiu hardware encoder with no issues, streaming to Vimeo and Facebook Live. I have a livestreaming gig next week in a park with no hardline so just 4G using Wirecast so that will also be a good test for the Speedfusion VPN. I will let you know how things go.

As for Cradlepoint, I haven't really investigated their infrastructure but heard good things.

Cheers for now


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## FMEng (Mar 9, 2021)

I would avoid using a VPN as the simplest path is going to have the fewest dropped or late packets. I have run OBS via Verizon 4G cell connection several times. I just tether my Samsung S9 by USB. The limitation seems to be OBS, and the computer hardware it's running on. Running the bit-rate too high, or the encoding quality too high (slower) will result in dropped frames because the computer can't always keep up. Lowering the resolution and frame rate reduces encoding artifacts. Think of it as a multi-legged stool. I have an HP laptop with an Intel i7 and after extensive testing on Youtube, I settled on the following settings for reliable transmission, while not compromising video quality too much.

OBS set for 720p, 30 FPS, x264, 2000 kbps, encoder preset fast.

The other issue is the type of data plan you have. Some plans, especially those with "unlimited data," throttle the bandwidth after uploading very long. I have a fairly low data cap, and pay over charges, but they don't throttle at all. I'll gladly pay an extra $10 to stream a video if it works every time.


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## longreachnz (Mar 9, 2021)

FMEng said:


> I have run OBS via Verizon 4G cell connection several times. I just tether my Samsung S9 by USB. The limitation seems to be OBS, and the computer hardware it's running on. Running the bit-rate too high, or the encoding quality too high (slower) will result in dropped frames because the computer can't keep up. Lowering the resolution and frame rate reduces encoding artifacts. Think of it as a multi-legged stool. I have an HP laptop with an Intel i7 and after extensive testing on Youtube I settled on the following settings for decent looking video and reliable transmission.
> 
> 720p, 30 FPS, x264, 2000 kbps, encoder preset fast.


@FMEng,

Are these internet dropped frames you are experiencing or encoder dropped frames? You can see this in the stats window while streaming.


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## FMEng (Mar 9, 2021)

I don't recall anymore. I went through the bench testing last spring. I was more interested in prevention than the cause. Basically, I tried varying bit-rate and encoding speed until seeing glitches coming back from Youtube, (watching on a separate computer with a wired connection) and then backing off a notch.


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