Intermittent data requirements

Sharon_is_SAM

We are planning an extended trip and know we will need additional data as well as the option for a different provider for the best coverage.  Seems like our data use is very limited unless we travel.  Any good ideas for intermittently expanding coverage and data?

We have an ATT plan and thought that a Verizon Jetpack may be the answer, but I am not sure if we are eligible for a solo Jetpack without a Verizon account.

What are your thoughts and what do you do?  

N7SHG_Ham

You can buy a Version burner jetpack and month to month plan, just pay when you need it, no contract.

I don't know that there is a one size fits all best plan. A good resource is Mobile Internet Resource, they have a You Tube channel and recommend various things, good plan today may be something else tomorrow.

Watch tethering, that often is quite limited, even if device is unlimited.

DougH

We just use our cell phones and tether.  We had Cricket Wireless (8Gb-$45/mo) using the ATT GSM network for years, then last year they changed things so tethering (while still permitted) was severely throttled down to 0.5Mbps all the time, except on a limited number of specific devices. Ouch.

So recently switched to US Mobile (8Gb-$40/mo).  Plan uses the T-Mobile GSM network and speed jumped from 25Mbps up to 80Mbps, for less money!  Can switch plans every month or top up minutes, text, data.  I just switch to unlimited and ludicrous speed ($60) on the months I'm going to be camping a couple weeks.  But the company still throttles after 15-20Gb on "unlimited" so I can't go crazy grabbing too many podcasts, and no movie streaming (which I don't do on the road anyway) aside from the occasional YouTube video.  8-15Gb data is enough for our needs. But if you're a YouTube content creator you need more like 500-1500Gb.  I still have yet to see if T-Mobile network has similar coverage in all our fave spots in the NM to WY mountains.  So far, so good.

Wish I'd known sooner though, so as N7SHG_Ham says, it pays to check frequently. 

CrabTab

At home we don't use much data either @Sharon_is_SAM. We have used a two pronged approach to meet our travel data needs.

1. We have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) account with NORD. This encrypts our data to allow us some measure of safety when using public WiFi (although we still wouldn't bank that way). We have the Nord VPN APP on our phones and tablets.

2. We use Consumer Cellular for our phones (AT&T network). The advantage for us is that we have a small plan for non travel months that automatically scales up to the required level during travel months. At the end of the trip I just change the plan back down to our normal plan and it takes effect the next month. For comparison with other info posted; our basic monthly plan has 250 min talk/3GB data/unlimited texts to share. With our AARP discount the bill is under $40 total for 2 phones.

We have the capability to tether, but haven't found it necessary to meet our needs. Your needs, of course, may be very different...

pthomas745

I use Google Fi

https://fi.google.com/about/plans/

Verna

After being throttled for the last time by AT&T, I changed my service to Verizon. 

At first I had unlimited data, but after 22 gig, they could choose to throttle me. I also got a Verizon jet pack, but you get 15 gig and the you are throttled to a dial up service speed—pretty much useless after 15 gig. 

At the same time, I kept a Straight Talk Wireless phone from Walmart on the Verizon network with a month-by-month unlimited plan for $55/month. No throttling until 60 gig and you cannot use the phone as a hotspot. So two phones, plenty of data for data for the forum, streaming and internet. Great for fulltiming. 

Late last summer, Verizon changed their plans and they offered 70 gig of data per month, no throttling until 70 gig. The plan was great for me as at that time I was living in my 400 full time. I’ve never went over 40 gig (oh how I live college basketball!), so the plan is good for me. 

I have since not used the Straight Talk Wireless but it is available if I choose to activate it. 

For those who travel out West, I recommend the Verizon network, as AT&T has spotty service. I can count on less than one hand when I was without service on the Verizon network. 

WilliamA

Love my Verizon.  Love the plan, coverage (everywhere!) And my Jetpack. Actually switched from a Jetpack (charging, cords, hookup etc) to a Verizon (Motorola) cellular USB modem.  Just plugs in and gets fast net with great reception without having to fiddle with battery chargers etc.  I have mine on an unlimited data plan with my phone as an added line. $20 bucks a month for the modem...

WilliamA

tabiphile

WilliamA said:

Love my Verizon.  Love the plan, coverage (everywhere!) 
WilliamA

If not Verizon, then certainly a plan that uses Verizon towers. Their coverage is significantly better than AT&T domestically. For international coverage AT&T is the gold standard. 

Sharon_is_SAM

Thanks everyone! 

There are so many choices that you really need to define how and when you use data.  We just stumbled on a screaming deal for a wireless plan available to Spectrum internet users.  They use the Verizon network, so that looks like a no brainer.  Anyone out there using Spectrum wireless?  I still see a Jetpack in our future.  It seems like an easy way to intermittently expand our data beyond our phone for use with our iPads.  

WilliamA

Verizon lets me turn my aux line off and on.  Perfect solution for intermittent users...

WilliamA

Denny16

I just turn my iPone into a hotspot when I need an internet connection where other options are not available.  No extra expense of a dedicated hotspot WiFi device.
Cheers

Marceline

I have a Tmobile hotspot. It's pretty easy to increase and decrease the data allowance as needed.

Sharon_is_SAM

@Denny16, our thinking was to have a very limited phone plan for the vast majority of the year and expand our data when we travel and don’t have access to WiFi, like Marceline. I think a prepaid mobile hotspot plan does not require ongoing, monthly fees like you have with a higher data postpaid phone plan.  @N7SHG_Ham, the Technomadia Mobile Internet Resource Center is an excellent read.  YouTube videos available, too. https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/  

@WilliamA, isn’t your cellular USB modem only for connecting a laptop?  I would go that route with a laptop, too.  We only need WiFi.  

WilliamA

Laptop, desktop, phone etc.  I use it with my Android car head unit and with my Android 2 din radio in the trailer.  It will work with anything that has a USB plug and needs internet.  

WilliamA

Tampakayaker

If you are over 60 T Mobile offers 2 phones with unlimited data for $60 a month total

jameskuzman

We went through a similar fact-finding mission at the end of last summer as part of our "can we actually work from the camper?" experiment. 

We both work remotely, but need constant internet access not only for e-mail and web use, but for file downloads/uploads to FTP sites and cloud storage. We also use Google and Skype for video calls. 

Our mobile carrier is Verizon and I've always been pleased with their coverage. However, at two of the four state parks we camped in, we had little to no signal. I don't mean no LTE, I mean no coverage at all. 

At the other two parks we had great LTE coverage, but discovered two issues: One, we sucked down data at an alarming rate, and two, tethering was VERY slow despite being able to run full speed on our iPhones.

The data suck turned out to be the VPN required on one of the company laptops. It does a large data dump and retrieval (over 5GB) when the laptop is first powered up and is always using data in the background. We had a 10GB/month plan and half of it disappeared in the first 15 minutes of being connected. 

The tethering speeds was not an anomaly - it's a real issue. You wouldn't think the carriers would care about what device used data from your plan, but they do, and they throttle data WAY back on tethered devices. For instance, we could easily get 30mbps downloads on 4G on the phones, but the laptops and iPad could only manage 2-3mbps down - completely useless for work. Upload speeds were even worse. 

That's when we started looking at dedicated mobile hotspots. Since we had signal issues at two of the parks we like to frequent with Verizon, we focused on Sprint and AT&T. This gives us a "belt and suspenders" approach, figuring if one carrier doesn't have good coverage, another one will. 

AT&T is expensive, but their data coverage is robust. I'm going from memory here (and the prices and plans change every 20 minutes it seems) but I seem to recall that $60/month gets you 10 or 20GB of data. That wasn't going to work for us, since the VPN-connected laptop would blow through that in just a couple of boot up cycles. 

Sprint offers 100GB of data for $50/month, and you can either buy the hotspot outright or spread the payments out over 12 months. Their coverage isn't as good as Verizon or AT&T, and because of the frequencies on which they operate their signal doesn't penetrate inside buildings as well as other carriers, but so far it has worked very well. Throughput speeds to any device are excellent, but do of course vary upon signal strength. They give you 30 days to try it out during which you can return and cancel if you don't like the results. I trekked to our four closest favorite "work from here" campgrounds with laptop and hotspot in hand to test the signal from every possible area. All worked well with Sprint, so that's what we went with. So far, so good. 

One final interesting note: The Sprint store - as in Sprint owned and operated, not a franchise - could not have been less interested in their own hotspots. Walking into the store, I explained up front what we wanted, and the sales person said, "Why not tether?". When I explained why not (low throughput speeds), he suggested we ditch Verizon altogether and get Sprint phones - to which we could tether. I had to explain that not only would this not solve the speed issue, but would not give us the carrier redundancy we wanted. I asked again for the hotspot. He didn't know they offered one. Neither did his manager. Finally another employee told them they don't carry them in the stores, and that we'd have to order on line (which we did without any issues). 

Hotspot bonus: When our home internet goes out - which it does on a semi-regular basis - the hotspot lets us continue working without having to pack up and head to a public wi-fi access point for the day. 

Sharon_is_SAM

@jameskuzman, thank you for the detail.  It is nice that you were able to narrow down which provider offered the best coverage.  Did the throttle occur when multiple devices were tethered? I have read that can be the case.  Although Verizon seems to be the answer for coverage, I think they are a victim of their own success as speeds are reported to be slow in congested, urban areas.  I am hoping that won’t be as big of an issue in the less populated areas we hope to travel.  And I know what you mean about ill informed corporate employees - I think that the plans change so often, it is hard to be an informed employee.  I am still collecting information and may wait for a mobile hot spot sale.  I have read some scathing reviews of Spectrum mobile, so I am treading cautiously.  Still, it would be hard to pass up Verizon coverage for $14/month!

N7SHG_Ham

Even better than a "consumer hot spot" is a mobile router, external antennas and even ability to add an outside antenna. Few if any phone stores have the routers so you are kind of on your own. If you can get a router that has frequencies and bands for more than one carrier, then it is just a matter of swapping SIM cards.

jameskuzman

Sharon_is_SAM said:

Did the throttle occur when multiple devices were tethered? I have read that can be the case.  Although Verizon seems to be the answer for coverage, I think they are a victim of their own success as speeds are reported to be slow in congested, urban areas.  I am hoping that won’t be as big of an issue in the less populated areas we hope to travel. Still, it would be hard to pass up Verizon coverage for $14/month!

The throttling occurs immediately and with only a single device connected. Without getting into heavy technobabble, the carriers count "hops" - the number of individual connections between the connected device and their service. Data on the phone is a direct connection to the carrier. A laptop connected to the phone is at minimum a double hop (laptop to the phone, phone to the carrier) and sometimes more. The carrier can tell the difference and limits the speeds on anything tethered. 

This seemed weird to me at first - why would the carrier care how I use the data I'm paying for? - but then I realized what I'm paying for is *potential* data use. They'd love it if I paid for 10GB and used nothing because it frees up their network. Plus effective tethering keeps them from selling another device (mobile hotspot) and adding another line on the account. 

You are correct that speeds can slow down in areas where many customers are connected through the same tower. You'll notice this at sporting events, concerts, festivals, and conventions. Being in a sparsely populated area, at least in theory, gives you a bigger piece of the pie; the flip side is that carriers are less likely to invest in cell sites in areas with lower population (fewer customers, less money to be made). 

If you already have Verizon for your phone and you have specific campgrounds that are within driving distance, I would visit them to verify signal strength. If you don't, you may have to buy a friend lunch to tag along for an afternoon. You can also reach out through various geographic-specific forums and Facebook groups to draw upon other's experiences in a particular area. 

To @N7SHG_Ham's suggestion, indeed, a mobile router is an even more flexible solution as you can swap SIM cards from different carriers. The Netgear Nighthawk M1 is one example. AT&T offers this one locked to their service, but you can buy an unlocked version directly from Netgear. 

As Netgear puts it, it "works best" on AT&T and TMobile as it's missing one of Verizon's primary channels, but that doesn't mean it won't work on Verizon; it will just depend on your location. The M1 does allow you to connect external antennas which you can set up inside your camper or even outside so long as you can come up with a way to mount the antenna and get the wire from the inside to the outside. 

I'll also echo @N7SHG_Ham's recommendation to check out the Mobile Internet Resource website and YouTube channel. It's the most comprehensive resource for this sort of thing. 

Last thought: The best solution for *you* will depend on why you want or need the connectivity. If you need it for work and it's as important as having power and water, you'll have to go to greater (and more costly) lengths to figure it out. If you just want it for convenience and can do without now and then, you'll have an easier time. 

jameskuzman

@Sharon_is_SAM: 

The throttling occurs immediately and with only a single device connected. Without getting into heavy technobabble, the carriers count "hops" - the number of individual connections between the connected device and their service. Data on the phone is a direct connection to the carrier. A laptop connected to the phone is at minimum a double hop (laptop to the phone, phone to the carrier) and sometimes more. The carrier can tell the difference and limits the speeds on anything tethered. 

This seemed weird to me at first - why would the carrier care how I use the data I'm paying for? - but then I realized what I'm paying for is *potential* data use. They'd love it if I paid for 10GB and used nothing because it frees up their network. Plus effective tethering keeps them from selling another device (mobile hotspot) and adding another line on the account. 

You are correct that speeds can slow down in areas where many customers are connected through the same tower. You'll notice this at sporting events, concerts, festivals, and conventions. Being in a sparsely populated area, at least in theory, gives you a bigger piece of the pie; the flip side is that carriers are less likely to invest in cell sites in areas with lower population (fewer customers, less money to be made). 

If you already have Verizon for your phone and you have specific campgrounds that are within driving distance, I would visit them to verify signal strength. If you don't, you may have to buy lunch for a friend lunch who does in exchange for a little exploration. You can also reach out through various geographic-specific forums and Facebook groups to draw upon other's experiences in a particular area. 

To @N7SHG_Ham's suggestion, indeed, a mobile router is an even more flexible solution as you can swap SIM cards from different carriers. The Netgear Nighthawk M1 is one example. AT&T offers this one locked to their service, but you can buy an unlocked version directly from Netgear. 

As Netgear puts it, it "works best" on AT&T and TMobile as it's missing one of Verizon's primary channels, but that doesn't mean it won't work on Verizon; it will just depend on your location. The M1 does allow you to connect external antennas which you can set up inside your camper or even outside so long as you can come up with a way to mount the antenna and get the wire from the inside to the outside. 

I'll also echo @N7SHG_Ham's recommendation to check out the Mobile Internet Resource website and YouTube channel. It's the most comprehensive resource for this sort of thing. 

Last thought: The best solution for *you* will depend on why you want or need the connectivity. If you need it for work and it's as important as having power and water, you'll have to go to greater (and more costly) lengths to figure it out. If you just want it for convenience and can do without now and then, you'll have an easier time. 

Jim 

N7SHG_Ham

And there are ways to get around the hop count, I am aware of at least one mobile router where that can be spoofed and the network thinks it is on device rather than tethering. I suspect eventually one might get caught doing that and I am not avodcating bypassing the network detection, just saying the interwebs are a wonderful tool for learning what is possible.

jameskuzman

@N7SHG_Ham - Indeed there are :-) And I actually did those with the laptops, but if I got the hop count spoofed low enough it had connection issues. Plus one of the laptops is a corporate device with VPN, and it's the one that's the data hog and from/to which the large-ish files have to be transferred. I didn't suggest it because I think Sharon is probably looking for a more legitim... errr... turnkey solution ;-) But I like the way you think! 

jkjenn

I 100% agree with Verna's response.