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Beware cellular reseller Kore Wireless Group. The Cellular Industry has not been that friendly to small users. Back in 2009 I though I had got lucky with a small MVNO Wyless providing cellular IoT data connections at a reasonable rate.
At the time I had some customers monitoring a number of remote rural stream where the only signal around was Verizon which used CDMA. I combined an embedded Multitech CDMA modem with the pressure sensor. I was hoping to be able to grow the number of customers I had, but I only ended up with the number of units installed less than 10.
It did work pretty well for the past 6yrs. For new monitoring, I switched to using Onset equipment. However they only use ATT GSM which isn’t as widespread.
Then Kore Wireless acquired Wyless – and this April Kore gave me a 2 month notice they were declaring an end-of-life to the Verizon plan I had. I contacted the product manager, and initially he said there was a good confidence they could switch it to another plan. Then I heard nothing, but on my bugging the product manager, a week before the end-of-life date, he said that the plan subscription would be a minimum that was equivalent to 1000% increase.!!
I pleaded this wasn’t going to work, and told them the context – it was monitoring streams with endangered species in. He agreed to extend it while I looked for other options. I talked to a Verizon representative, who didn’t get back. I asked for it to be extended to the end of the year – then they terminated the data link.
So some background – these providers are virtual networks called MVNOs – they are buying data access in bulk and can have some nefarious practices. Even the relationship I had with Wyless – they would periodically double bill a month, the first time I went into it in detail, and they claimed it was an accounting practice change, the 2nd time I protested it, but got nowhere – they had my credit card. The 3rd time, I realized I was on the hook and couldn’t do anything about it.
So beware not having an alternative way of changing the provider if they get nasty.