Choices for wireless internet?
I'm sure this has been discussed here before but with 89 pages of results to go through and a really slow connection right now I'm just going to open a new thread. Please feel free to redirect me if this has been discussed recently.
I'm the one who asked about smartphones a while back and ended up postponing the purchase because of other expenses. I am now considering - *seriously* considering - changing my wireless provider, mainly because of the issue I just mentioned - slowness. I'm with Cricket and their 3G is not that fast to begin with but it's currently a whole lot worse; I think I've gone over my monthly bandwidth limit of 5 gigs.
I guess I'm lucky in one respect - Cricket doesn't charge for the extra, they just slow you way down. And this has happened only once before, a couple of years ago I think. But I do track my usage and I've been noticing that for the last several months it's been really hard to stay under the limit. I'm not sure exactly why because I don't think my usage patterns have changed that much but whatever the reason, I'm having to cut back on my time online - which, considering this is the only way I make money right now, is a problem.
Cricket does have plans with higher limits but they cost more and honestly, with the modem getting old and dropping calls more it's probably going to need replacing soon, so it seems like a good time to just rethink the whole ISP issue. I've been doing some research but the playing field has grown so much lately that I'm getting really confused, and not just by the "players"; there are lots more choices of plans now. At this point the only thing I really need is a limit that's higher than 5 gigs; I could handle 3G speed although obviously 4G would be nicer. Also, the plan has to be prepaid; no contracts. Currently I'm in the suburbs of a large city so I think I should be able to get a signal here; eventually I want to do some traveling but that's not going to be for a while yet.
So, if you'd care to help me out by sharing your own choices/experiences - things like cost, coverage, speed, reliability (as in, few dropped calls) - I'd really appreciate it. I'll check in here as often as I can. I'm not sure how long I'll have to endure this slowdown - obviously my tracking dates are somewhat behind Cricket's because I didn't think I was over yet - but I'm hoping things will speed up again (so to speak :) ) in a couple of days at the most.
Thanks in advance for your help, and as I said before, if there's another recent thread about this feel free to post a link.
I'm the one who asked about smartphones a while back and ended up postponing the purchase because of other expenses. I am now considering - *seriously* considering - changing my wireless provider, mainly because of the issue I just mentioned - slowness. I'm with Cricket and their 3G is not that fast to begin with but it's currently a whole lot worse; I think I've gone over my monthly bandwidth limit of 5 gigs.
I guess I'm lucky in one respect - Cricket doesn't charge for the extra, they just slow you way down. And this has happened only once before, a couple of years ago I think. But I do track my usage and I've been noticing that for the last several months it's been really hard to stay under the limit. I'm not sure exactly why because I don't think my usage patterns have changed that much but whatever the reason, I'm having to cut back on my time online - which, considering this is the only way I make money right now, is a problem.
Cricket does have plans with higher limits but they cost more and honestly, with the modem getting old and dropping calls more it's probably going to need replacing soon, so it seems like a good time to just rethink the whole ISP issue. I've been doing some research but the playing field has grown so much lately that I'm getting really confused, and not just by the "players"; there are lots more choices of plans now. At this point the only thing I really need is a limit that's higher than 5 gigs; I could handle 3G speed although obviously 4G would be nicer. Also, the plan has to be prepaid; no contracts. Currently I'm in the suburbs of a large city so I think I should be able to get a signal here; eventually I want to do some traveling but that's not going to be for a while yet.
So, if you'd care to help me out by sharing your own choices/experiences - things like cost, coverage, speed, reliability (as in, few dropped calls) - I'd really appreciate it. I'll check in here as often as I can. I'm not sure how long I'll have to endure this slowdown - obviously my tracking dates are somewhat behind Cricket's because I didn't think I was over yet - but I'm hoping things will speed up again (so to speak :) ) in a couple of days at the most.
Thanks in advance for your help, and as I said before, if there's another recent thread about this feel free to post a link.
