We went ahead and got the Verizon MIFI unit which creates its won hotspot and will allow up to five WIFI enabled devices to all connect at the same time.
When I got my smart phone a few years back VERIZON would not modify my cell phone or even install the software to do that. I guess things have changed in todays world.
I like the idea of having my secure MIFI unit. I don't think I would like the idea of tying up my cellphone...
So it just depends what you want to do I reckon.
Just stay with VERIZON TOWERs if you want the best coverage across the whole USA.
We just use our setup to check emails, keep in touch with the kids, pay a few bills, and some surfing of the internet. Don't have enough DATA to do any downstreaming. All works fine for us.
I tried the sniffing out the WIFI signals for a couple of years and it got to be a down hill thing for us being able to find something you could use.
Don't have that problem anymore.
Roy Ken