Anyone tether their phone as their primary internet method?

[pete6032]

I can get an unlimited plan for Verizon for $80. I currently pay $50 for my cell phone plan plus $50 for internet, so I could save $20/mo by dropping the internet plan and upgrading to Verizon unlimited. Has anyone else done this?

 

[Malogeek]

I can get an unlimited plan for Verizon for $80. I currently pay $50 for my cell phone plan plus $50 for internet, so I could save $20/mo by dropping the internet plan and upgrading to Verizon unlimited. Has anyone else done this?

Depends on what you're going to use it for. Online gaming? Never really a good ideally unless latency isn't a factor for you. Lots of data usage? Your data will be shaped based on priority after 22Gb in a month.

 

[Thebobo]

Depending on your provider I don't see a problem. Back about 8 years ago I had a real bad fractures had to stay in a rehab unit for 5 weeks I had my brother purchse me a 3g air card and he bought my PC to the facility. We had private rooms with fridges bathrooms and sinks was nice actually. Anyway I was in a raid guild in EQ and I raided with ventrilo every night with zero problems, ping was around 35. Sure helped save my sanity.

I tether at work sometimes or because we just have two t1 lines.

 

[Malogeek]

Back about 8 years ago I had a real bad fractures had to stay in a rehab unit for 5 weeks I had my brother purchse me a 3 g air card and he bought my PC to the facility. We had private rooms with fridges bathrooms and sinks was nice actually. Anyway I was in a raid guild in EQ and I raided with ventrilo every night with zero problems, ping was around 35. Sure helped save my sanity.

Certainly would have helped with a long hospital stay. My wife was in hospital for 4 months gestating our son, would have gone crazy without laptop and internet.

I honestly don't know what latency is like on modern 4g/5g services, so it may require some testing.

Other factors against using your phone as your internet for your home is the amount of other devices. I believe there's a limit on how many can be connected to your phone at the same time. Also having in on charge constantly, hotspots are rather power hungry. Lastly, the actual effective range of the hotspot, no idea what your home size is and whether that's an issue.

 

[lxskllr]

I do. I use a prepaid cell. 4gb of high speed, then it gets throttled to ~16KBs. That gets supplemented with a work provided cell plan and sneakernet from work. I'm pretty happy with it. Due to limited data I can't do everything I want, but it's close enough, and I'm not tied to a company.

 

[BudAshes]

They throttle the hell out of you after you reach their "unlimited" limit. Doesn't take much to reach 20+gb even with just web browsing and updating apps.

 

[lxskllr]

They throttle the hell out of you after you reach their "unlimited" limit. Doesn't take much to reach 20+gb even with just web browsing and updating apps.

I usually update when I'm throttled unless there's something I really want and it isn't ridiculously sized. I also use addons to load web pages from cache, and to load some js locally. That cuts down a bit on web use. Of course it isn't perfect, but with some thought you can extend limited resources. It's like living off the grid. You can do things everyone else does, just a bit less so, and a little differently.

 

[BudAshes]

I usually update when I'm throttled unless there's something I really want and it isn't ridiculously sized. I also use addons to load web pages from cache, and to load some js locally. That cuts down a bit on web use. Of course it isn't perfect, but with some thought you can extend limited resources. It's like living off the grid. You can do things everyone else does, just a bit less so, and a little differently.

Well I was working off it at the time, I ended up just forking over for a 40gb plan which cost an arm and a leg.

 

[pete6032]

Looks like I used 21GB of data last month on my internet plan. Mostly from streaming netflix and listening to cloud music.

 

[Zeze]

I have Metro PCS unlimited for $60/mo taxes included.

Excellent service & great speed (40-50mbs up/down). I use 15-25 GB monthly for streaming anything I want.

The fine print says they prioritize other traffic once I exceed 20 GB. But I haven't seen any difference.

Maybe I should tether so I can test how much they let me use.

 

[JMC2000]

Even with unlimited data and unlimited tethering, most carriers don't like for you to use it as your primary internet service.

I know that T-Mobile will warn you three times for 'excessive tethering usage' before they interrupt your service.

When I was an OTR driver, I'd tether my laptop whenever I had down time, as it's far better watching movies on a 15" screen versus a 5.7" one. Would routinely use over 40GB via tethering alone (sometimes hitting 100GB total usage).

They weren't all too happy about it. Now that I'm regional, and go home every weekend, the laptop stays at home, and now barely hit 30GB total.

In essence, it's actually a bad (and possibly expensive) idea to use tethering as a replacement.

 

[NuclearNed]

My home internet is CenturyLink DSL and it SUCKS but is my only option since I live in a rural area.

My work iPhone has an unlimited data plan, and I get 4G from the tower I can see from my house, so I use it for crucial things where the internet absolutely positively must not go down, like really important football games.

 

[SearchMaster]

How much data do you use? We aren't extreme streamers or downloaders (kids watch a couple hours of Netflix a day, light gaming, I work from home and do general web surfing) and we're at 200-300GB/month, which wouldn't fly even on an "unlimited" cell plan.

 

[RockinZ28]

I did it for years, but that was with the grandfathered true unlimited. Just had a phone serving as a USB modem 24/7 to my wifi router. Finally canceled it as I moved back to civilization in April.

It doesn't hurt to try with their new "unlimited." Worst case you're not satisfied, and just pick up your landline again.

 

[Cappuccino]

Now I'm curious. Does anyone know any unlimited data plan for the UK? They don't even exist. If someone can find me i give free ipods.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Unlimited plans is unheard of here. The highest you can go is like 3GB and you're paying several hundred per month for that. The plans are still better than before though, originally it started at 50MB, 100MB was the "better value" option, after that it just got super expensive. Now I have 750MB. But it's still not enough if I wanted to use it as my primary internet. It's ok for checking internet stuff if I'm outside of wifi range, but that's about it. I would not want to do youtube or anything like that.

 

[RossMAN]

Google at&t mobley $20

You're welcome

 

[Pulsar]

I'm doing it right now, and it works fantastically. I have 5 verizon lines, and one of them is just for internet. That phone has the hotspot turned on, which is then bridged to my home network. I do that so I can use my own DNS servers on my router to enable parental filtering. Verizon forces their phones to use the Verizon DNS.

I am on the Verizon Unlimited plan. The throttling stuff you hear is way way overblown. To give you an idea, this month I've used 206 GB on my internet phone. They will ONLY throttle you if you're on a busy node and it's prime time. I've never experienced throttling of any sort.