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paradox in a box |
Many of you read my dilemma about the home we may build and no Comcast or other options.. Comcast may be coming, we have a few weeks to confirm. But yesterday at my GF's family house we were speaking to someone in the field of software development and internet stuff. He said we should not worry and that 5G wifi hotspots are now a thing and as long as there is cell service we won't have any issues. He also said within a year it will be very standard and really put some competition on Comcast and other cable providers. So the gf's ex husband actually let us use a Verizon Wifi Hotspot device he has for business to drive to the location of the house and try it out. We connected 2 phones and my laptop to the device. I had a movie on Amazon Prime going while also having Youtube videos running on both our phones and the laptop simultaneously. It seemed to work without a problem. Speedtest did not indicate a good speed, only like 2 mbs. But I suspect that going through cellular is not working accurate for how speed test runs. But before we bite the bullet without worrying about Comcast install I figured I'd check here, like I do with everything. So any experience? These go to eleven. | ||
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Baroque Bloke |
I’ve never had wired Internet service – instead, I’ve used Sprint, exclusively, since about 2001. A USB dongle until two or three years ago, when I switched to a dedicated Sprint Hotspot device. And now I use the “Personal Hotspot” capability of my iPhone X. Plenty fast enough for the things I do. Recently, without telling me, Sprint increased my allotment from 15 GB/month to 50 GB/ month. Much more than I currently need, but I plan to buy some Apple HomePod speakers, which deliver music solely via the Internet, which will require more data – don’t know how much more. My current download speeds, reported by Speedtest, are in the 50 Mbps range. Uploads are 5-20 Mbps. YMMV. Serious about crackers | |||
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Truckin' On |
For about the last 3 years we have been using Verizon Wireless for all our internet needs. We use the hotspots on our iphones to link to a laptop and desktop via bluetooth or USB cable. The only other options out here were satellite- Wildblue and Hughesnet. Used both for as long as I could stand it, until wireless coverage in our area improved to the point I was ready to make a change. The satellite speeds were terrible and the bottom line was poor overall performance. There is no option for cable out here. Using the phones, the only real inconvenient thing is having to link up and connect manually when you want to use the internet on the PC's. But you get used to that quickly. I have found that direct USB connection speeds are better for things like streaming but we don't do much of that- normally just youtube, nothing like hulu or amazon shows. The downside is pricing- it's not cheap. Our use is on the lighter side so the 16 gig plan works for us. That's not close to workable for many though. Overall it works well- much better than the crappy satellite service. I was so glad to ditch that. ____________ Μολὼν Λαβέ 01 03 04 14 16 18 | |||
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| Member |
For surfing internet and youtube stuff using a hotspot as your only home internet works fine. On the other hand if you plan to cancel cable tv and use the hotspot to stream 6 hours of hdtv everyday you are going to pass their data caps - whether official or undisclosed - and get throttled so you cannot watch any more tv. | |||
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| paradox in a box |
Yeah, that was basically what I was noticing on their current plans. They have 75 gb tops before throttling. But we could install satellite for television if we have to. I found some info on 5G by Verizon. It's in it's infancy and only in a couple places now. But it's likely coming fast. I think our deal is that we love this house location and we really want to make this work. We've looked at tons more locations to move and nothing gets us excited like this place. The only issue we have is her son (half the week) on his PC gaming. Her adult son probably just watches tv or youtube. Her cousin thinks 5 G will be everywhere within a year. These go to eleven. | |||
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i have been using one for two years. here is a post about it i made at the time we started. Our cost has gon down by 1/2 since then, roughly 100 bucks a month.
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| Savor the limelight |
Just playing games doesn't use that much data. Getting updates for the games, Windows, iPads, iPhones, etc. will burn through data quickly. I let my kids use my phone as a hotspot once and each of their iPads (3 of them in total) down loaded a 1.2GB iOS update. That put a hole in my 5GB plan. Speed test seems accurate for cellular to me. I've seen it report between 2mbs and 50mbs in various locations between Florida and Michigan. USB tethering with two android phones and three iPhones has been more reliable than using them as wireless hotspots. Connecting wirelessly works fine for internet surfing, but anything where there is a continuous flow of data works better tethered. | |||
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| Just because something is legal to do doesn't mean it is the smart thing to do. |
Wife and I have T-Mobile service, senior plan. 2 phones, unlimited talk/text/data service. $60 a month for both! Hotspoting is 3g up to 10 gig per phone and then drops to 2g. Or so they say, neither of us has ever gone over the 10g number. We don't game or stream any TV stuff. Other then sometimes service is slow we have had no problem for about 1.5 yrs now. Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking. | |||
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Member |
I’m in this business for my career fwiw. Who is the local telco and who is the local MSO (Cable operator)? You’d have to do a build and pay but that’s all negotiation and the build cost will be built around terms. Long terms then build cost decreases. You could definitely roll the costs into the mortgage. Just a thought. Home automation doesn’t use a lot of bandwidth. Home alarm, lighting, stuff like that. The streaming will get you, hulu, Netflix and the like. Verizon is out of the wireline business, and they just laid off like 40k employees. They are going all in on 5G LTE and betting their business on it. Verizon, historically, takes too many chances. They did this with Fios, and it ended up being a money loser for them so they do what they always do, hand over their debt laden products to Frontier, where your customer service and service itself goes to die. 5G LTE will rip, but trust me VZ will put all kinds of caps in place. Look at their cellular plans today, a fucking maze of terms of terms of service. ATT is doing this too but thankfully those of us who have grandfathered plans, they aren’t messing with. Data caps, stream caps (many plans have 480p, or 720p caps which sucks, especially if you want to stream 4K content) etc I could but wouldn’t want to deal with those limitations. I’d have to have layer 1 myself. MSO or Telco. Coax or fiber, and at the bare minimum, a POTS line for emergencies. If you are dead set on the place I’d definitely put up a dish, via Direct or Dish network. Then I’d sign up for Netflix’s Blu Ray mail you 2, 3, 4, etc discs at a time. Between the dish and blu rays coming in the mail I’d kill all streaming services. PC/console gaming you really want to have a wire. The problem with cell towers is the bandwidth caps and how many other people are tied to the tower. A hot spot will work great for forums, online reading/research, news, YouTube, etc. It’s when you want to start using it for streaming video that you’ll get bit one way or another. I know enough that I’d talk to neighbors and the telco or MSO and work it. You may even be able to make some money long term. What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone | |||
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| paradox in a box |
Cable operator is Comcast. We are making progress with them and they may be installing. It will take 2 weeks or so while they talk to neighbors and Unitel to make sure the poles are good to go. But if we don't get Comcast we want to make sure the kids needs will be met. Mostly her son and gaming on a PC. I know he is always connected to friends as I hear him talking to them while he games. I've seen a few services that say they don't throttle Wifi hot spots. But it's a huge risk if it doesn't work out. What I do know is the cell signal is strong and that with a Verizon wifi hot spot it worked very well for the short time we were there. So it seems the speed will be fine, we can use Dish for television if needed. We can even use our phone service as a hotspot for our internet usage, which is a lot but not streaming or anything. I'm also hoping the 5G thing gets real very soon. That looks very promising. But I'm really hoping someone might chime in that has a wifi hotspot only and uses a lot of data. These go to eleven. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive.  |
I had to use Verizon 4G at my spot in the mountains for a couple of years to supplement the abysmal DSL and the half-assed but expensive Satellite services that were available. In short, like Satellite service, it worked pretty well, when that's all you have. Beats the shit out of nothing, isn't flat out horrible, sometimes is actually pretty good, etc, but it will always suck compared to Cable or Fiber and will generally be more expensive to boot. But it's better than nothing, and certainly useful for the basics. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive. |
I hope it works out. I do. But I think those estimates are overly optimistic. And, you're pretty well screwed if you guys expect to stream tons of content and gaming (a whole house / family worth) on Satellite or Cellular. Ping times are shit for gaming, data caps are on the low side for much Netflix-ing, and even if you can get all that data you'll probably pay through the nose for it. | |||
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| Member |
Verizon is having their prepaid WiFi hotspot for $65 a month unlimited - you might want to look into that. Go to Reddit or Howard's forums for discussions on it. I have the grandfathered AT&T WiFi hotspot (Mobley plan that I posted here a while back) for $23.32 a month incl tax for unlimited data. Have used over 30 GB a month on it with no deprioritization whatsoever. People on forums have reported over 100 GB without any deprior/throttling. Hopefully the $65 Verizon plan is same. | |||
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| paradox in a box |
So things are looking up in the Comcast domain. Surprisingly we met with the builder today and were really excited with the plans we came up with for our new house. At the same time Comcast tried to call me. She emailed since I didn't answer... There are 26 houses and 73 poles they need to pass to get to our location. They have already submitted permit requests for the poles and are sending sales people to gauge interest to the 26 homes. They haven't mentioned what the interest might be needed to complete install. But they said that they expect an estimate to see if we need to contribute anything. That is based on my previous conversation that if the poles need work we may need to contribute. She said based on what they know now they are 90 days out from having it installed. Our builder told us the house could be completed in 60 days from our P&S, which is expected Jan 1st. So that is all at about the same time. Feeling optimistic. These go to eleven. | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
Problem is: Verizon half-assed it the way all the legacy Telcos half-ass things. The thing that calls itself "at&t" these days did the same thing with U-verse. Only "at&t," instead of building-out a real high-speed data network, tried to leverage their creaky old copper plant--with the predictable results. Now they're finally doing FTTH, but only in the more profitable areas. That's what Verizon tried to do. Didn't work for them. Won't work for "at&t." This is why the cable companies are eating the legacy Telcos' lunch. Even when my area was still considered rural Comcast was upgrading cable. "At&t?" Patching their rickety old copper plant. Comcast is now putting in fiber, and even upgrading existing cable to fiber. "At&t?" Still relying on their rickety old copper plant.
I'm using a 4G LTE line for failover, but I wouldn't care to rely on wireless, 5G or otherwise, as my primary circuit. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Member |
I had a dedicated Verizon 4g air card and that was my sole internet source for a while. It worked out very good BUT I didn't stream any tv at the time. I do stream a hot spot from both my iPhone XS or ipad mini 2 for use with my ipad pro or laptop when traveling and it works pretty well and downloading tv series to my ipad pro is fairly quick. There is a point when Verizon starts slowing down your connection and it depends on what cell plan you have. The top plan would work well if you're only watching/streaming tv a few hours a day. It should work for you and your wife, probably won't work well for your wifes kid who is gaming all day on it. BUT check into the Verizon unlimited dedicated hot spot, as that might not throttle down at all. 5 G should be all over the place within a year (except maybe very rural areas). | |||
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| Member |
I use this: https://www.unlimitedinternet4u.com Gray market rented AT&T unlimited SIM in a Netgear LTE router. It's that or 3 MB DSL that usually gets half that speed. There seller claims no looks, throttling deprioritization, etc. I had something similar with a Verizon SIM for a couple years before they cut it off. I get 20-40 MB down and 10-15 MB up. I'm pleased with it and it works fine. | |||
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| Member |
Yes this is the AT&T Mobley unlimited plan that I currently have. This plan directly from AT&T is no longer available. It's $20 a month for unlimited data in a ZTE Mobley. People (me included) move the SIM card into a better AT&T hotspot unit (I use the Netgear MR1100 hotspot router). So they're paying AT&T $20 + tax a month and you pay them $75, pocketing $50 a month in profit. I'd rather get the currently offered Verizon prepaid hotspot plan for $65 with unlimited data than going this gray route. Verizon hotspot plans With autopay discount, it is $65 a month. With multi-line discount, you can get it for $40 a month, and it is legit. | |||
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Don't Panic |
Hopefully your new house is really close to a cell tower and if so, you may be in luck when/if the carrier lights it up with 5G. Reason I say that is that from what I can tell, 5G technology is/will be inherently much shorter range than 4G. Pundits hyperventilated when some tests of 5G 'mobile' signals worked at 3000 feet in perfect conditions. (To compare, we get several bars of 4G LTE being three miles from the nearest tower.) It may be that your ISP might offer a 5G 'fixed wireless' setup which has the potential for longer range. Reasons being that sort of setup uses different frequencies than the 'mobile 5G' tech does, and also uses a box/antenna mounted to your house that is a better receiver/transmitter than can fit in a small battery powered device. In other words, it's nice that the test with the 4G portable Verizon hot spot worked, but understand that test didn't give you any data relevant to future 5G coverage at that location. | |||
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Uverse here has been brick shit house reliable since day 1. FTTN worked for them for years. It was a solid solution and much less expensive than what VZ did. ATT sat back and watched VZ dump all that money in FiOS only to see them lose their ass. I’m no fan of ATT or any wireline carrier. They are all crooks, but ATT didn’t just lay off 40k people like VZ did. ATT will generally sit back, and watch others blow their wad. They’ll take notes, learn from the mistakes someone else made with their money and then make sure they don’t go tits up. VZ just announced they are out of the wireline business. They are going all in on 5G LTE. We’ll see how it pans out. I know via work and dealing with carriers every day, who is making money, expanding, and who is headed to the shitter. I also know what type of wireline is reliable and from who. Yes the MSO’s caught up and surpassed them with speeds which is why they are now going FTTP. I used Uverse for a decade. When the local MSO bettered the price/speed ratio I switched. So now ATT is laying fiber to the prem. I’ve had more outages in 2 years on TWC now Spectrum than I did in 10 years with Uverse. It’s all geographically dependent on what works, who offers a sweet deal, etc. OP, go knock on doors if you have to. You want Comcast to build. They’ll stick you on cost but it’ll be worth it. They also might not offer speeds you could get elsewhere in a more densely populated area but it will be plenty good enough. If their rep is already telling you you may be out $0 that is a real good sign for you. I’ve known people who had to drop $10k or more to pay for a build out to their prem. Permits are always the issue on builds. I used to work on that side. Every municipality wants their money for digs. And God help you if the transport design involves a DOT, a railroad, federal government entity, or crossing a corporation’s land. From the sound of it, I think you’ll get it. Just don’t be surprised if they hit you with a small part of the build to offset their costs. If they do this, negotiate with terms. If you’ll sign terms with them for 60 months they’ll likely waive it. I do builds at work all the time. Got one going with one of my sites now, with Spectrum. Spectrum has fiber already run but I need coax so Spectrum is eating 60% of the cost, and the money I’ll save vs. ordering circuits, it pays for itself in less than 12 months. Be cordial with the rep, don’t mention money. Wait until they do, if they do. If they do, negotiate with terms. You definitely want layer 1 run compared to going to a cell tower. You should be very optimistic. If they are gonna stick you they’ll start talking how many thousand right off the bat. I’ve known people in these situations to door knock and talk to the neighbors. If you get enough people to sign, they’ll build you out for $0. What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone | |||
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