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Education & Action Explained

This article is divided into two main sections, Education & Action. The Action Section refers to content with step-by-step how-to articles on this topic. The Education section links to related content and deeper dive information from our friends at the Mobile Internet Resource Center. Enjoy and your feedback is always welcome!


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Products Covered

  • All Peplink Max Series Devices
  • This feature does not work for our M Series multi-carrier plans. To monitor usage on that plan, you must be on firmware 8.4.1 or higher in which case your monthly usage will appear towards the bottom of your admin panel dashboard.


Summary

This article explains how to check how much bandwidth you have used on your Pepwave device over a period of time in total. This article also covers how to set bandwidth limits on your Pepwave device to avoid hitting data caps that may cause suspension on your data account. This article is typically used in conjunction with our article on identifying specific clients on your network using bandwidth here: " Identifying What Devices are Using Bandwidth"


Before Getting Started

Disclaimer

While Peplink devices can monitor data as described below, this number may differ slightly from how data usage is calculated by your wireless provider.  When setting bandwidth limits, it is recommended that you give yourself a 10% buffer.  For example, let's say your bandwidth allowance for the month is 300 GB.  We recommend setting your bandwidth allowance to 270 GB (300 - (300 X 10%)) = 270.  This will give you a warning before you actually run out of data.


Education

Member Content Available

Our complete guide on this subject is available to our members at: 

Peplink Cellular Band Selection

 Some content is provided free of charge, members have full access as well as access to our pre recorded webinars on this topic. Learn More About Memberships...


Additional Content & Links from Mobile Internet Resource Center


Action

Monitoring Usage By Day, Week & Month

Your Pepwave mobile router has advanced features designed to help you monitor all aspects of your internet usage. To access your data usage reports you must first access the Pepwave Administrator panel. Make sure you are connected to your Pepwave's wired or wireless network and open a web browser and navigate to http://192.168.50.1 which is the default address for the admin console. 




The admin console will pop up, the default username is "admin" and the default password is "admin" (without quotes). Once you login you will be instructed to reset your password. If you have forgotten your password please refer to Pepwave Password Reset Options.


Once you login to the admin console navigate to the status tab as shown at the to of this screenshot below. Once on the status page click on the "Monthly" tab under "Usage Reports" which we will use for this article. 



This screen will show you all of the monthly usage across all of your WAN sources. Before you begin to explore the data we recommend you select the specific SIM card you wish to explore. Then we recommend selecting the GB view which will sort your data usage in Gigabytes which is easier to match up to what your data provider is allowing for usage. See below screenshot for details. 


You can now view the data usage on your specific sim by month. As you can see in the lower section of the screenshot above this user has used 325GB of data from December 1st through December 19th of 2020. Depending on their usage plan they may need to adjust usage or dig deeper into the usage by selecting the Daily Usage Reports which will provide the same graph but sort the information by days instead of months. Below is a screenshot of the daily view. 



As you can see above when you switch to daily usage the customer has no usage since December 10th. This likely is because they disabled SIM A because of high data usage to prevent the account being suspended or throttled from the carrier. You can learn more on how to enable your Pepwave to automatically disable a sim card when a certain data limit is reached in the section below. 


Disabling SIM Cards When a Specific Data Limit Is Reached

In many cases it may be a good idea to enable individual bandwidth limits on each of your cellular data plans. This can prevent you from using all of your data in a short period of time or prevent you from hitting data caps or being subject to suspension clauses imposed by resellers and cellular carriers. In order to enable bandwidth limits follow these steps. 


Navigate to the Dashboard tab of your administration console and select the cellular details tab next to the cellular modem you wish to enable limits on. Note the below image has 2 cellular modems as this is a dual modem device. You may see only one modem if you have a single modem device. See screenshot below. 



This will open the cellular details popup window that shows you all of the details associated with your cellular modem and sim card. Scroll down to the Cellular Settings section and then look for the Bandwidth Allowance Monitor section. Check the box to enable the Bandwidth Allowance Monitor. See screenshot below, note that setting below may be different than your modem, please only update the settings under the Bandwidth Allowance Monitor unless oterhwise instructed to do so. 



You must now tell your Pepave the start date of your data plan. If you are unsure of your start date please contact your data reseller or your cellular carrier if you have a direct plan. This is not the date you pay for your service if you are using a data reseller so make sure to check this date with them directly. if you are using a data reseller recommended by MobileMustHave.com you can email the data reseller directly by emailing [email protected]  For the example above we are setting the billing cycle start date as the 20th of each month. 


Next, it is time to set up your Monthly Allowance. We recommend setting this somewhat below your actual limit to ensure if you accidentally hit this number you have a little more data to work with to get you through the rest of the month. 


Lastly, scroll down to the bottom of the page and his Save & Apply. This step is very important. See the screenshot below. 



Your bandwidth allowance monitor is now active! Nice work!


Monitoring Individual Devices

We have written a separate article on how to monitor individual devices for usage. This article also explains how to identify which clients are using the most bandwidth for further troubleshooting. Links to article below. 



Did you know that you can limit the amount of bandwidth each device can use on your Pepwave? More information available in our Identifying What Devices are Using Bandwidth Article


Requesting Assistance

If you feel you are not getting anywhere or there is another issue you can always reach out to our team directly by initiating a ticket here on the support portal or by emailing [email protected]


Need More Help? Consider Joining Our Membership & Support our Community


MMH Explore members can join the conversation and gain access to our support forums located within the Mobile Internet Resource Center. Senior members of MobileMustHave's Technical Staff moderate the MobileMustHave.com Support Forum and tackle more advanced configurations, troubleshooting, and general advice.  


In addition, MobileMustHave hosts monthly live webinars on advanced topics. These sessions cover everything from the basics to the more nuanced areas of configurations on Peplink devices.  Past Webinars have included deep dives into; SpeedFusion Connect Protect (Cloud), Outbound Policies, VLANs, and much more.  


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