1. Help Center
  2. Owner Questions

What is the least expensive way to buy cellular for the MarkSetBot?

Most of the MarkSetBot Medallion plans come with cellular built in.  MarkSetBot cellular is provided by Hologram which provides worldwide roaming at no additional charge (carriers). 

We recommend using our SIM, but you can also provide your own.  All mainstream providers are compatible with the Android device inside the Bot. 

If you work with one of our approved providers, the Bot Phone will auto configure connection settings for you.  We currently work with: Hologram, Twilio, KPN, 1NCE, Telnyx, and Soracom.

If you would like to provide your own SIM, here are some things to consider:
- It is often most reasonable to add an extra SIM to your existing data plan.  It is often $10 - $15/month to add data lines that share your existing data bucket.

- A Bot typically uses less than 10MB/month

- Pay As You Go providers are often challenging to work with.  We recommend picking a mainstream IoT vendor

 

Coverage

Here is a tool for looking a the best providers in various places https://www.nperf.com/en/map/US/-/-/signal

 


Twilio

Prior to using Hologram, we shipped Bots with Twilio SIMs.  If you have any connection issues with Twilio, you can try forcing LTE to see if it helps or use "Toggle Twilio SIM" in our app:

- From the dialer, input *#*#4636#*#* (*#*#INFO#*#*), Phone Information

- Take screenshot of current settings and then switch to "LTE only".  Do not hit the back button, hit the menu button to save.

If you install a Twilio Super SIM yourself, you need to manually setup the SIM with the following steps:

  1. Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Mobile Network
  2. Enable Roaming
  3. Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Mobile Network > Access point names
  4. Tap the menu or + icon to create an access point.
  5. Enter Twilio under Name and enter super under APN.
  6. Input the MCC, MNC, and MVNO Type in the first row of the table below
  7. Tap the three dots and select Save
  8. Repeat steps 4 -7 for each line below
  9. Wait 10 seconds to see if it worked.  If it doesn't, reboot the tablet