Hotspot for home internet use?

[Ramen]

Anyone have just a hotspot and no modem? I'm thinking of ditching my home internet service and upgrading my phone and plan. Looking at something like a budget Moto G Play with a Mint Mobile plan. For $20 a month, I can get 10GB of data and tether my laptop as needed. I'm a light user, mainly email, news websites, occasional YT videos, maybe one SD movie stream per month and 2-3 podcasts per week. An online data calculator says I probably use 4GB a month.

But how good is the hotspot user experience? My current phone is a 2017 LG Phoenix 3 with 4G and is pretty slow and clunky (it was $40 at Kroger). Then again, my home internet service is only 12Mbps, so I'm used to slow. How would that experience compare with a new 5G phone and data plan?

 

[homestead]

Sounds doable.
I recently ran speed test on my 5G phone when I was at out and about and it measured 120Mbps. My phone is now faster than my home laptop which runs on 50/50Mbps. ; )

 

[Sojourner]

Personally, I would never voluntarily forego a wired, high-speed internet connection. Cellular has more latency (even 5G) and the data rate is typically much more variable than a dedicated, wired connection. I suspect that your current, "slow" 12Mbps service is substantially better than a cellular hotspot would be. And, IMHO, the cost savings would not be worth the hassle and the degraded experience. I pay only $30/month for HSI and would happily pay $50 or more.

 

[jim584672]

I was using a 4G LTE hotspot for Internet for a few years. Then they started to throttle back the speed and it became almost unusable. Now I'm with the cable co.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

Have not tried dumping my internet since I use it so much including my Ring Alarm and my Google Voice home phone and I'm online most of the time so....
If you're low income consider applying for the EBB program which offers a $30 monthly credit off your home internet bill.
https://www.fcc.gov/acp

 

[Ramen]

If you're low income consider applying for the EBB program which offers a $30 monthly credit off your home internet bill.
https://www.fcc.gov/acp

Thanks, good to know about this. While I'm always happy to cut expenses, my main goal is to spend less time online -- but without forgoing crucial conveniences like banking, email, bill payments, etc. If I could get a usable connection that's not so addictive, I'd spend less time on diversions. Another goal is to simplify my hardware and lose the rat's nest of wires and gizmos in my life.

 

[easysurfer]

Personally, I would never voluntarily forego a wired, high-speed internet connection. Cellular has more latency (even 5G) and the data rate is typically much more variable than a dedicated, wired connection. I suspect that your current, "slow" 12Mbps service is substantially better than a cellular hotspot would be. And, IMHO, the cost savings would not be worth the hassle and the degraded experience. I pay only $30/month for HSI and would happily pay $50 or more.

Same here. I use wireless for my mobile at home and occasionally with laptop. But for desktops, don't mind running a wired connection. If I use the laptop for anything intensive, the wire is hooked up.

Even my printer that can print wireless, I opted for a long USB cable connection.

When folks write about their wireless connection dropping or getting a better router with better wireless signal, I kind of chuckle .
To be fair though, I don't live in a house with many rooms and floors so easier to drop a wire/cable down and go old school.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

I hear you, I spend way too much time on the internet and the days I turn off the laptop after breakfast and walk away are productive days.

 

[corn18]

I have a Visible account for $25 / mo and use an old iphone with it. I bought it for camping, but I used it at home for a week to run everything. We stream everything so we are pretty heavy users. The Visible phone uses the Verizon network which has pretty good reception at my house. I get 40Mbps with the personal hotspot turned on. That is enough to do everything we want but there were occasional times where YouTube TV would buffer for a few seconds. After one week, we had used 115Gb of data and it was not throttled, although Visible says they will throttle after 4gb.

I have Spectrum 200Mbps fiber service at home and it is $44/mo and that is what we use. Didn't feel like saving the $44 in case Visible catches on and limits their hotspot data. Sure is nice having full streaming while lounging in our glamper, though.

 

[Lakedog]

I used my phone as a hotspot on a Cricket plan (15gb data for hotspot) for 5 years or so. I went with Cricket when living in an RV for months at a time but then kept the setup for home use after selling the RV. It worked well for me as I rarely came close to using the 15gb but did little streaming. I recently went with Spectrum (200mbps) at $49/mo for the first 12 months (do not have cable) but may eventually go back to the Cricket hotspot since I still haven't been doing much streaming. I think the Spectrum plan goes to $75/mo after the initial 12 months.

Using the phone as a hotspot did keep me from spending as much time on the internet (which is not such a bad thing).

 

[Ramen]

Thanks, I've been eyeing Cricket as well. Looks like I could get a Moto G Stylus 5G phone (or similar) for $40 and then add a 5GB/month plan for $30/month or 10GB for $40/month. Mint is cheaper -- $20/month for 10GB -- but I'd have to bring my own phone and looks like 5G phones start around $250 or $300.

What's the difference between using the phone as the hotspot and having a separate hotspot? It would be nice not to have to turn on my phone when I just want to use my laptop, but if the standalone hotspot needs its own data plan, then I might as well stick with the phone as the hotspot, right?

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

For people who live in rural/exurban areas, a cellular hotspot may be the only option. DW is on a rural brodband committee for our county. She did a straw poll with county supervisors this week on Internet speeds in their homes -- several reported speeds of 2 mbps or less. We regularly hear from people who moved into their pastoral dream homes out in the country, only to learn they had entered an Internet desert.

We limped along with a 300kbps service until we used a series of hotspots, most of which delivered 20-25mbps. A year or two ago we subscribed to an AT&T fixed wireless service that runs at about 32mbps, with upload speeds in the 20+ mbps range. It's still cellular based, but its speed is better, particularly with uploads.

 

[SnowballCamper]

I would prefer just a hotspot, but for our location cell service just doesn't cut it. If we had consistently 4 bars in signal strength we would have gone to the hotspot long ago.

 

[Lakedog]

Thanks, I've been eyeing Cricket as well. Looks like I could get a Moto G Stylus 5G phone (or similar) for $40 and then add a 5GB/month plan for $30/month or 10GB for $40/month. Mint is cheaper -- $20/month for 10GB -- but I'd have to bring my own phone and looks like 5G phones start around $250 or $300.

What's the difference between using the phone as the hotspot and having a separate hotspot? It would be nice not to have to turn on my phone when I just want to use my laptop, but if the standalone hotspot needs its own data plan, then I might as well stick with the phone as the hotspot, right?

Cricket did not offer separate data plans when I started my plan but I believe you have to have a separate plan for a hotspot. I think their Simply Data Plan with 20gb is $35 or 100gb for $55.

I had the Cricket More plan for $55 and got my Moto phone for free. If you setup auto payment, you get $5 off each month on plans costing $40 or more.

 

[MBSC]

I've been eyeing Cricket as well. Looks like I could get a Moto G Stylus 5G phone (or similar) for $40 and then add a 5GB/month plan for $30/month or 10GB for $40/month.

What's the difference between using the phone as the hotspot and having a separate hotspot?

Cricket has 20GB data only plans for $35. You can buy their LTE hotspot for $80 or bring an AT&T compatible device and pay $10 for a Cricket Sim Card.

https://www.cricketwireless.com/data-only-plans

Hotspots have a better internal antenna. This means higher speeds all else being equal.

Mobile hotspots are designed to serve a single purpose of connecting to the internet, and as a result, their large antennas offer a much better connection than the hardware found inside a mobile phone.

Battery life is the most important factor when choosing a hotspot device. Today's internet devices have room for large lithium-ion batteries that can broadcast Wi-Fi on battery power for 24 hours, offering a day's worth of continuous service compared to a couple of hours with phone tethering. Battery time decreases with heavier data use.

Source: https://www.business.com/internet/tethering-vs-hotspots/

 

[Ramen]

Thanks for the further info. This will be an interesting decision. Will I go with the clunkier hardware (phone only) to make net use harder and therefore less of a diversion? Or go with a separate hotspot to make it less frustrating? Hmm.

Another option is to take my laptop down to the conference room of my building when I need Wi-Fi (it's free for residents here). Or across the street to the library (yes, I use a VPN). Either one would have much better service than a hotpot or my current DSL.

 

[Sue J]

A few months ago our cable internet was down for a few days. DH told me how to use our cell phones as a hotspot. It was very easy and worked so well! It was faster speeds than our internet. For a minute we considered not having our cable modem internet and just using the phone hotspot. We have a T-Mobile unlimited plan but it has a limit for hotspot usage. If we ever decide to do that we would have to bump that up.