I’ve found the antenna choice and placement can make a huge difference in a data center environment.  In some cases it required going to a directional high gain antenna pointed towards a desirable tower, which we found by having someone monitor / reload the Opengear web interface while another person moved the antenna around, to figure out where the best signal strength was produced.

Ours are all Verizon units, but in data centers near some VZ towers, the little omnidirectional paddle antennas that come with the Opengear boxes have been sufficient, even if the unit is mounted in a rack.  Even with ping times being in the 150-300ms range, normally SSH isn’t too bad, but it’s certainly not snappy.  I’d say it’s not quite as bad as trying to use SSH via Wifi on a Southwest flight, but not as good as a serial console connection. 

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces@nanog.org> on behalf of Dovid Bender <dovid@telecurve.com>
Date: Friday, December 28, 2018 at 7:08 AM
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Cellular backup connections

Hi All,

I finally got around to setting up a cellular backup device in our new POP. I am currently testing with T-Mobile where the cell signal strength is at 80%. The connection is 4G. When SSH'ing in remotely the connection seems rather slow. Ping times seem to be all over the place (for instance now I am seeing: rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 174.142/336.792/555.574/99.599 ms) . Is that just cellular or is that more related to the provider and the location where I am? I could in theory test with VZ and ATT as well. With Verizon they charge $500.00 just to get a public IP and I want to avoid that if possible.

Thanks and sorry in advance if this is off topic.