Cellular connection for mobile camera tower!! NEED IDEAS.

[Str787]

My company has task me with building a mobile camera trailer to be placed on job sites was planning to go with Unifiy cameras and NVR they also make a mobile router but it is only 4g. Does anyone know any 5g routers that would work? They want to be able to view footage remotely.

[Thomas53]

A couple of questions.

1. Do they need to be able to see a lot of detail or are they only interested in whats generally going on?

2. Do they even need to see color?

 

If the answer to either or both is "No" then it doesn't matter because you can decrease the amount of data being sent, so it doesn't really matter.

[Str787]

7 minutes ago, Thomas53 said:

A couple of questions.

1. Do they need to be able to see a lot of detail or are they only interested in whats generally going on?

2. Do they even need to see color?

 

If the answer to either or both is "No" then it doesn't matter because you can decrease the amount of data being sent, so it doesn't really matter.

Just enough detail to see if machines or materials have been messed with and move the PTZ cameras I was going to use.

and yes color would be a requirement 

[Donut417]

29 minutes ago, Str787 said:

Does anyone know any 5g routers that would work?

That's something you may want to speak with the cellular provider about. Generally when it comes to 3rd party modems it's wise to see if the ISP has a list of devices they support OR have any types of required features. 

[Str787]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

That's something you may want to speak with the cellular provider about. Generally when it comes to 3rd party modems it's wise to see if the ISP has a list of devices they support OR have any types of required features. 

Yea probably a good idea I just saw ubiquity had one didn’t know if anyone had experience with one 

[manikyath]

couldnt you just 'stream' at some very low framerate (1fps, for example), and keep a local higher framerate cache of 24 or 48 hours that you can pull segments from if desired.

 

even with enough theoretical bandwidth, you shouldnt rely on mobile data to stream video, it's far too costly and unreliable. but if you stream "enough" to see when things happen, select which segment of high quality video you want to pull in, and let the video transfer over however long time it may take.

[Str787]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

couldnt you just 'stream' at some very low framerate (1fps, for example), and keep a local higher framerate cache of 24 or 48 hours that you can pull segments from if desired.

 

even with enough theoretical bandwidth, you shouldnt rely on mobile data to stream video, it's far too costly and unreliable. but if you stream "enough" to see when things happen, select which segment of high quality video you want to pull in, and let the video transfer over however long time it may take.

Hm is this something I could do through Unifi software?

Would only need video streaming just to check in on the site periodically. The cameras would record to an NVR which I could pull when I’m onsite.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

couldnt you just 'stream' at some very low framerate (1fps, for example), and keep a local higher framerate cache of 24 or 48 hours that you can pull segments from if desired.

 

even with enough theoretical bandwidth, you shouldnt rely on mobile data to stream video, it's far too costly and unreliable. but if you stream "enough" to see when things happen, select which segment of high quality video you want to pull in, and let the video transfer over however long time it may take.

I think the idea is they would have local storage and be able to remotely view the cameras periodically from off site if necessary. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

21 hours ago, Str787 said:

My company has task me with building a mobile camera trailer to be placed on job sites was planning to go with Unifiy cameras and NVR they also make a mobile router but it is only 4g. Does anyone know any 5g routers that would work? They want to be able to view footage remotely.

Are you sure 5G in the area is standalone?  All the 5G I have used has be NSR, which basically means uploading is over 4G anyway so there would be no benefit to using 5G for your setup.

Also consider that mobile usually is CG-NAT so you are going to need some sort of relay or VPN like Tailscale in order to remote into the NVR.

[Str787]

13 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Are you sure 5G in the area is standalone?  All the 5G I have used has be NSR, which basically means uploading is over 4G anyway so there would be no benefit to using 5G for your setup.

Also consider that mobile usually is CG-NAT so you are going to need some sort of relay or VPN like Tailscale in order to remote into the NVR.

Ubiquity allows you to remote view cameras and footage no need for vpn.

[Donut417]

8 hours ago, Str787 said:

Ubiquity allows you to remote view cameras and footage no need for vpn.

Yeah if you have a public IP from the ISP. But mobile networks generally use CG-NAT which means no Public IP address. So a VPN is used to get around that.

[Falcon1986]

52 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Yeah if you have a public IP from the ISP. But mobile networks generally use CG-NAT which means no Public IP address. So a VPN is used to get around that.

If UniFi's remote NVR access still goes through UniFi's cloud access (I don't have NVR, so not sure), being behind CG-NAT shouldn't be a problem.

 

I've had no problems managing sites running UniFi whether they were behind CG-NAT or public IP.

[NobleGamer]

On 5/17/2025 at 11:19 AM, Str787 said:

Yea probably a good idea I just saw ubiquity had one didn’t know if anyone had experience with one 

Some carriers, such as Tmobile which I've used at home, lock 5G home/business internet to their provided devices, and so you if you go 3rd party with them you would need a 5G gateway that supports IMEI spoofing. Their gateways also have GPS, so if you don't want to chance them enforcing your service location, you'd want gateway to also have GPS support or GPS spoofing.

 

As for what TMO currently provides:

• Businesses now typically get a G4AR/G4SE
• Businesses used to get Inseego FX3100
• Homes get Sagemcom 5688W or G4AR/G4SE based on plan

I have the Sagemcom. It has a relatively higher operating temp than other home models. Not sure about the FX3100 or third party models. TMO's provided gateways have their specs on their website if you search for them. For third parties, I kmow Chestertechrepairs builds their own gateways from scratch and has some with active fan cooling. 

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, NobleGamer said:

Some carriers, such as Tmobile which I've used at home, lock 5G home/business internet to their provided devices

I read somewhere that businesses could use 3rd party modems. 

[Echothedolpin]

So these do exist already and can be rented. Any particular reason you don’t want to go that route?