Republic Wireless

[corn18]

Well, we just got back from 4 days of camping. Used my iphone6 with Visible in a poor reception area. Forgot to measure the download speed but we had 2 x Roku TVs streaming and 2 x laptops hooked up to the iphone6 personal hotspot and all running at the same time. We had some buffering that got irritating but that was due to single bar. We used 11GB of data.

We are home now and just ran a speed test and it is 50Mbps download. I could take the time to hook up my home Roku TV with 4k streaming, but I won't. Done it enough to know that my Visible account has not been throttled and I can connect as many simultaneous streaming devices as I need to.

 

[Cobra9777]

Well, we just got back from 4 days of camping. Used my iphone6 with Visible in a poor reception area. Forgot to measure the download speed but we had 2 x Roku TVs streaming and 2 x laptops hooked up to the iphone6 personal hotspot and all running at the same time. We had some buffering that got irritating but that was due to single bar. We used 11GB of data.

We are home now and just ran a speed test and it is 50Mbps download. I could take the time to hook up my home Roku TV with 4k streaming, but I won't. Done it enough to know that my Visible account has not been throttled and I can connect as many simultaneous streaming devices as I need to.

The T&C are very clear. Every online review I've read confirms the throttling. Also confirms the 1 device limit on hotspot. Confirms video throttling at 480p, etc. I tested for a full day and confirmed all this as well.

I have no reason to doubt your claim. Maybe you're grandfathered on some older plan. I have no idea. Point is, people should not sign-up thinking they are somehow NOT going to be subject to all these limitations, based on your one-off experience.

 

[Chuckanut]

In September, I'll be checking out my go-to for such decisions: https://clark.com/cell-phones/best-cell-phone-plans-deals/

Clark Howard! He may be a nerdy do-gooder. But, he's our nerdy do-gooder.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Re: Visible Wireless

After one full day of testing, these limitations are proving to be problematic. Video streaming on YouTube is usually 240p or 360p (set to auto). That's pretty-much unwatchable. If I set it to 480p, it buffers and stalls continuously. If I set it to 720p, it's just a black screen. So video streaming is a complete bust.

Speed tests on DW's 4G-only phone were 5-6Mbps on average. On a few rare occasions, I got 9-10Mbps. I never saw 12Mbps. On hotspot, speedtests averaged 2-3Mbps. I never saw 5Mbps. With the SIM in my 5G phone, speed tests were 20-50Mbps. Never saw anything close to 200Mbps. Unfortunately, video and hotspot were throttled same as the 4G phone.

This was all done with 2-3 bars of signal strength at the house, which is a bit better than what we typically get when camping. I did one test from the Home Depot parking lot where I had 5 full bars. It was 8Mbps on the 4G phone. So, not much better.

We'll keep testing throughout our $5 first month. Including on some camping trips. I'll keep an open mind. But early testing definitely confirms that throttling is real. And the numbers in their T&C appear to be max or best case. Not real-world, typical speeds.

I know I probably sound like a shill for US Mobile but here is what they offer:

No throttling or deprioritized data if you have a 5G phone on 5G service.
No speed caps
Up to 4K video streaming
Verizon or T-Mobile network (you choose your SIM card)
Unlimited plans come with prioritized unthrottled data up to 100GB on Verizon; 35GB deprioritized data on T-Mobile
Unlimited plan also comes with 50GB of hotspot (Verizon) and 15GB (T-Mobile).
800# phone support, chat support, email support

There is deprioritization on 4G when congested.

 

[Cobra9777]

I know I probably sound like a shill for US Mobile but here is what they offer:

No throttling or deprioritized data if you have a 5G phone on 5G service.
No speed caps
Up to 4K video streaming
Verizon or T-Mobile network (you choose your SIM card)
Unlimited plans come with prioritized unthrottled data up to 100GB on Verizon; 35GB deprioritized data on T-Mobile
Unlimited plan also comes with 50GB of hotspot (Verizon) and 15GB (T-Mobile).
800# phone support, chat support, email support

There is deprioritization on 4G when congested.

Thanks. I've been looking closely at US Mobile also. That's probably what we'll try next for DW on Verizon.

However, from my research, the T-Mobile offering on US Mobile is not competitive at all. The Verizon plan is. But it basically boils down to 50GB for $50/mo... 50GB being the hotspot cap, which is what RVers and campers care about. Basically, same as RedPocket on Verizon... 50GB for $50/mo, all of which can be used for hotspot and HD video.

RedPocket also offers 100GB on AT&T for $50/mo ($37.50 on a prepaid annual plan).

DW's phone is 4G only, so she would not benefit from priority data on US Mobile/Verizon. So that's not really a differentiating factor for us. My phone is 5G but I prefer T-Mobile's flavor of 5G for now. And we purposely keep our phones on different networks.

When traveling in the van, we use data at a rate of 2-10GB per day. So, while 50GB sounds like a lot, we could consume that in as little as 5 days. That's why I wanted to try the Visible plan, which truly is unlimited hotspot, but with it's own set of limitations. We'll know more after a couple camping trips this month.