Looking to cut some bills. Wife’s AT&T bill is $101 after taxes. That of course includes the $20 monthly iPhone payment. Unlimited, talk, text, data, and 10gb hotspot a month.

Spectrum is $45 a month unlimited talk, text, and data. Don’t see anything about tethering.

Yahoo mobile is $40 a month unlimited talk, text, data, and hotspot can be tethered to a single device at a time unlimited.

Both claim to be Verizon service.

Pay off the wife’s phone for a couple hundred bucks and cut the monthly bill by half.

How is this a bad plan?

I have a Verizon plan with 6GB/mo for $35.50/mo.
I’m finding that I don’t need much more as I use our homes WiFi for streaming etc.

My wife and I have been using Spectrum mobile since last June. The service and coverage is as good as my work issued phone, which is on Verizon. We use the “by the gig” plan, instead of the unlimited. It has been a great cost saver for us. We previously had AT&T, but the rate hike they tried to pull last summer was the final straw, and we dumped them.

quote:

Originally posted by Phred:
My wife and I have been using Spectrum mobile since last June. The service and coverage is as good as my work issued phone, which is on Verizon. We use the “by the gig” plan, instead of the unlimited. It has been a great cost saver for us. We previously had AT&T, but the rate hike they tried to pull last summer was the final straw, and we dumped them.

Is there any hotspot tethering?

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

quote:

Originally posted by Phred:
My wife and I have been using Spectrum mobile since last June. The service and coverage is as good as my work issued phone, which is on Verizon. We use the “by the gig” plan, instead of the unlimited. It has been a great cost saver for us. We previously had AT&T, but the rate hike they tried to pull last summer was the final straw, and we dumped them.

Is there any hotspot tethering?

You can do it, and they don't charge extra for the capability, but the amount is separately tracked, and tethering/hotspotting speeds get cut drastically once over the monthly 5 Gigabyte threshhold. I assume you are already a Spectrum cable customer, because Spectrum is limited in who they can sell to - only their landline customers can be sold Spectrum mobile.

Some more info on their hotspot/tether policies here: Buried at the bottom under "data policies"

quote:

Mobile Hotspot
There are no additional fees for using your device as a mobile hotspot. Normal data rates apply to mobile hotspot data usage.

After 5 GB of mobile hotspot data use within a billing cycle, mobile hotspot speeds will be reduced for the remainder of the cycle.

Mobile hotspot data usage counts towards data usage.

A laptop may consume more data than a smartphone would for similar activities.

By 'reduced' here, they mean REDUCED. Can't find that reference now, but as I recall, the tethering/hotspotting speed, once you were past the limit, was reduced to well under 1MB/second! That was the deal-killer for me - I run the home from my hotspot and 5 gigabites would nowhere near last a month.

That said, for folks who have normal high speed connections at home, and wouldn't be relying on the wireless connection for everything (i.e. not me) this would not be as crucial. And, note that slowed tethering/hotspotting speed would not affect data speeds for usage on the phone itself.

Spectrum uses Verizon's towers/network, so the coverage and speed are great, assuming you're eligible to buy and you're OK with their hotspot/tethering data policies. I would be on Spectrum Mobile now, if I had a normal high-speed option and didn't need to rely on my phone to get modern data rates for the house.

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Originally posted by joel9507:

Spectrum is limited in who they can sell to - only their landline customers can be sold Spectrum mobile.

Not quite true. We (wife and I) use Spectrum mobile. We do not have any landline phone.

We do use Sectrum internet and cable TV service.

The actual requirement is that you use Spectrum internet service, cable TV is not a requirement.

If you do not use Spectrum internet service and want to use Spectrum mobile, you can still do so; it will cost an additional $20.00 / month / phone. I believe that there is a two-phone limit per billing account if you do this.

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Originally posted by Black92LX:

Don’t see anything about tethering.

Personal hot spot is available. No specific charge for this, but data usage is lumped in with (added to) the data usage on the phone.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Looking to cut some bills. Wife’s AT&T bill is $101 after taxes. That of course includes the $20 monthly iPhone payment. Unlimited, talk, text, data, and 10gb hotspot a month.

Does she actually consume a significant portion of that 10gb/mo.?

Hotspot is available, but we don’t use it. Spectrum has a decent network of hotspots, plus my wife uses the WiFi at her office. I use my work phone for a hotspot if needed, but usually stay connected to my home WiFi if at at home, or just use my phone for whatever if I’m out and about.

Got this from spectrum's site.

using-your-phone-as-a-mobile-hotspot

Support \ Device \ Management \ Using Your Device as a Mobile Hotspot
Using Your Device as a Mobile Hotspot

You can use your Spectrum Mobile device as a hotspot for no additional cost. Normal data rates apply to mobile hotspot data usage. Depending on the data plan you have, download and upload speeds may be reduced after a certain amount of mobile hotspot data use each month.

Visit our Device Help & Tutorials page for specific instructions to configure your device as a mobile hotspot.
Unlimited Data Plan

After 5 GB of monthly mobile hotspot data use on an Unlimited line, mobile hotspot speeds are reduced down to a maximum of 600 kbps for the rest of your bill cycle. Once the next billing cycle starts, you’ll be back to full speed.
Note: Mobile hotspot data use counts toward your 20 GB high speed data allowance each month. Other devices, such as your laptop, that connect to your mobile hotspot may consume more data than your Spectrum Mobile device would for similar activities.

Learn more about Spectrum Mobile data plan options

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Yahoo mobile is $40 a month unlimited talk, text, data, and hotspot can be tethered to a single device at a time unlimited.

Yahoo Mobile is actually provided by Visible which is owned by Verizon. Of course, Yahoo is also owned by Verizon.

Visible is great if it works and is absolute garbage if it doesn't. There is next to no customer support.

However, if you sign up for Visible, the first month is only $25. Then you can head over to reddit.com and visit the subreddit VisiblePartyPay and join a party to get your monthly bill down to $25 a month.

You don't need to know the people in the party. You follow the link to the groups public party page, request to join, one of the other members accepts you and you are getting unlimited talk, text and data on Verizon's 4G LTE network for only $25 a month along with unlimited hotspot.

"So what's the catch?" you asked. Well, like I said, if it doesn't work it is absolute garbage and Visible is next to no help troubleshooting problems.

There is another subreddit called "Visible" where people post their good experiences as well as their bad. I recommend reading through it if you are interested.