Netcomm NF4V replacement

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quickymart

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#254406 10-Aug-2019 21:42

Eventually the time may come that I'll need to replace my trusty Netcomm NF4V. I've been using Netcomm products for over 10 years now and found them to be mostly reliable (bar one out-of-the-box failure). This was brought to my attention tonight:

https://www.netcomm.com/products/enhanced-hybrid-4g-lte-gateway-nl1901acv

A plus for this one is it has cellular data as a backup. Has anyone used one of these? What was the Wifi like? As long as it's as good as my NF4V (or better) I'd possibly be sold on one :)

quickymart

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#2438858 15-Mar-2020 21:41

Thread bump - anyone had any experience with of one of these by now? How good are they?

noroad

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#2438930 16-Mar-2020 06:14

They are an NF18ACV with extra memory and a 4G card.

quickymart

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#2439619 16-Mar-2020 21:44

I remember reading the wifi on the NF18ACV wasn't so flash, so I'll probably steer clear in that case. Thanks :)

sbiddle

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#2439729 17-Mar-2020 08:51

quickymart:

I remember reading the wifi on the NF18ACV wasn't so flash, so I'll probably steer clear in that case. Thanks :)

Really depends what you mean by "wasn't so flash". Coverage wise it may not be the best device out there, but wireless performance (performance is not the same as coverage) is IMHO pretty good, and the new Cloudmesh units are a great selling point for the solution.

Fred99

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#2439826 17-Mar-2020 10:35

Wifi on the NF18ACV I've got here is much better than the NF4V I had. Unrelated - but with the NF4V for some reason the ethernet ports failed one by one over I suppose about 3 years I had it. I never investigated why, only one was still working when it was replaced. AFAICT not anything to do with sockets or cable - and it sits untouched with a short cable connected to a Nuc, not constantly wiggled or plugged/unplugged. May have been something to do with heat / inadequate ventilation where it was sitting. No significant dust building up on it. Google didn't come up with port failure being a common issue. The NF18ACV seems to run just as warm - I should probably do something about improving airflow around it.

quickymart

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#2440917 18-Mar-2020 22:04

Good points Mr Biddle and Fred, I was seeing reviews that said either the wifi was dropping off, or the range was poor, and the further away from the router (which I understood was actually not that far) the signal got really bad. I've found my NF4V has a decent range and the speed is reasonably consistent for wifi - that's what I was asking about :)

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raytaylor

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#2443073 21-Mar-2020 15:51

I cant give much advice on the specific model you are looking at but

NF15ACV is a terrible piece of junk - we have a self-recall in place for any we deployed to our customers. Various services such as DNS relay or dhcp would randomly just stop. They are really unreliable and we had about a 30% return rate for devices less than 6 months old.

NF18ACV is the best bang for buck - they fixed all the software problems of the NF15ACV

However in both devices the wifi range absolutely sucks.

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Behodar

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#2443088 21-Mar-2020 16:07

I made the mistake of getting an NF18ACV. As mentioned, the Wi-Fi range is terrible. My old AirPort would cover the whole house from the central comms cupboard. The Netcomm didn't work from the next room. It also inexplicably prevented me from seeing my Windows PC from my Mac. It ended up going back into its box and is currently gathering dust!