Anyone go all cellular with a desktop?

[IronWing]

Our fair phone/DSL provider is about to jack our rates and I am thinking about cutting the cord. We get fairly consistent 4G LTE Verizon service at home (all other providers have sucky suck coverage at our humble abode). I'm trying to estimate how much data I use on the desktop in order to figure which plan would be mo best. Anyone make the leap? How has it worked out?

 

[Cuular]

I use T-mobiles service 50.00 a month for truly unlimited 4G LTE. It works for most stuff. I don't play the twitch type video games, so your mileage may vary depending on type of games.

 

[lxskllr]

I have, but with some cheating. I grab most big downloads from work, and live with a reduced experience at home. I get 3gb lte, and unlimited 2g when that's used up for $35/month. I'm happy with it cause I don't have to deal with crap. I pay money, I get service. No contracts, no mystery charges, no commitment. It suits me, and it would probably suit someone who's on dialup, but it probably wouldn't suit someone used to highspeed, even meager government defined highspeed.

edit:
It helps I enjoy working with self imposed resrictions. With limited internet, you have to prioritize what you do. That means you subject yourself to less crap, and appreciate more what you get.

 

[BudAshes]

Our fair phone/DSL provider is about to jack our rates and I am thinking about cutting the cord. We get fairly consistent 4G LTE Verizon service at home (all other providers have sucky suck coverage at our humble abode). I'm trying to estimate how much data I use on the desktop in order to figure which plan would be mo best. Anyone make the leap? How has it worked out?

I've worked off tethering to my phone on and off over the last couple years. Works well for the most part, originally I was buying 40Gb plans which are expensive and I'd still run out a lot of times, and once it runs out your speed is limited to 1998 quality DSL. This year I switched to what they call "Beyond Unlimited" and I was at about 80Gb of tethered data usage one billing cycle a few months ago and was still getting 40-50mb/s up and down.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

While the telephone companies would like you to think you could and should cut the land line cord and go all cellular, you are a fool and your money is unwisely spent--and I work one of those large telephone companies.

Now, that being said what exactly is being defined as 'a desktop'?

Long live the Gigabit Fighters!

 

[IronWing]

I found out where in Win 10 I could see my internet usage. It was 27GB for the last 30 days. But I was on the road for fifteen of those days so actual usage may be closer to 55GB/month. Cell alone might not work out for me. However, 9.6GB was used by Nvidia Web Helper, a program that simply scans and loads optimization info for installed games. WTF Nvidia! I disabled the program to keep it from sucking bandwidth.

Now, that being said what exactly is being defined as 'a desktop'?

Large grey box filled with dust covered lumpy crap attached to a fancy Lite Brite.

 

[Red Squirrel]

With the data caps? I can't imagine doing that. I'd blow over my cap in a day or two just from misc traffic. That and it would not be as fast as my fibre connection.

Though if I was still stuck on DSL I would consider it as a viable option... only if it was not for the caps though. Back in the CDMA days they had unlimited plans but not anymore.

 

[shortylickens]

Im tethering right now and it sucks. Home broadband is a much better deal if you spend any real time online. Especially when downloading things from Steam.
Microsoft too. Rumor has it the next Forza will be over 100 gb.

 

[DigDog]

I thetered for a couple months and even with the best 4g the experience was underwhelming. Suggest instead getting a provider that doesnt suck.

IronWing: but, i live in the mountains/swamp/desert/nuclearwastedisposalfacility/hell !

Well then suck it up. There's a reason rates are going up.

 

[IronWing]

I thetered for a couple months and even with the best 4g the experience was underwhelming. Suggest instead getting a provider that doesnt suck.

IronWing: but, i live in the mountains/swamp/desert/nuclearwastedisposalfacility/hell !

Well then suck it up. There's a reason rates are going up.

I live less than a quarter mile from a fiber repeater station in a fast growing high density sprawl. The evil phone company won't run fiber. Probably because their only competition is an antiquated cable company which offers worse speeds than the phone company, at higher rates.

 

[DigDog]

Wut.
Whose fiber is it?

Have you just checked online if any other companies are in the area? (This might not be immediately evident, some could be business only, for example)

What kind of suicidal business does not offer fiber!

 

[lxskllr]

What kind of suicidal business does not offer fiber!

Monopolies. Virtual or otherwise

 

[BUTCH1]

Monopolies. Virtual or otherwise

Yup. only 18% coverage in our area.

 

[GeekDrew]

I've had exclusively AT&T "wireless home internet and phone" for a couple of years. I pay somewhere around $100/month for it, and there's a 500 GB cap, and I never come even remotely close to that. It's not great - I can't stream high-def videos in realtime... most of the time. But for everything short of that, it's adequate. I occasionally go to Starbucks or similar places with much much faster internet access, to download multi-GB files, just so I don't have to wait a while. But even that's just because I'm impatient, not because it can't do it.