another internet and cell phone question

[AlmostBoatless]

I am still confused about obtaining internet, cell phone plans and downloading movies for our journey full time this winter. DH has a prepaid phone that needs to be replaced and I have a Droid mini with our telephone number we would love to keep. Verizon has a plan currently that runs out July 1 with 10 gigs a month. I stopped in yesterday to be educated and am still confused. If I sign up for this plan and buy a Verizon jetpack for my soon to buy laptop can I download and stream Netflix movies about one per week? Is this considered wireless or will I have to have a usb to plug into the soon to buy TV? or watch the movies on my laptop?

Should we consider bluetooth which I am not very familiar with?

I'm sure the phone plan will be enough minutes and texts as we are pretty low use.

Any advice and guidance would be so appreciated. I have read everything on Technomadia and JackMayer and appreciate the guidance so much. Guess I'm confused over the which comes first part and how it all plays together.

Thank you for any advice.

[strollin]

GMandJM wrote:

strollin wrote:

GMandJM wrote:

strollin wrote:
Streaming works great for me (but I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan on Verizon).

I so envy your data plan!!! And it's probably locked in at $30 a month? Lucky you!

Yup! $29.99 plus I get a 20% discount thru my employer!

Oh, man! That is sweet!

And are you one of those people who got/will get a fat check for having your data usage throttled?

No fat check for me.

[GMandJM]

AlmostBoatless wrote:
Perfect GMandJM, exactly what I was searching for!

Thank you all so much, great people!

You are very welcome. Yeah, the folks around here are pretty awesome.

[GMandJM]

strollin wrote:

GMandJM wrote:

strollin wrote:
Streaming works great for me (but I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan on Verizon).

I so envy your data plan!!! And it's probably locked in at $30 a month? Lucky you!

Yup! $29.99 plus I get a 20% discount thru my employer!

Oh, man! That is sweet!

And are you one of those people who got/will get a fat check for having your data usage throttled?

[strollin]

GMandJM wrote:

strollin wrote:
Streaming works great for me (but I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan on Verizon).

I so envy your data plan!!! And it's probably locked in at $30 a month? Lucky you!

Yup! $29.99 plus I get a 20% discount thru my employer!

[AlmostBoatless]

Perfect GMandJM, exactly what I was searching for!

Thank you all so much, great people!

[GoPackGo]

OTA TV via your rig's antenna works great if you are anywhere near a major city. The stations now send out a digital signal.

BUT - you will need to be happy with getting only the major channels (CBS, NBC, etc) and PBS channels. You will not get National Geographic, History Channel, ESPN, NFL, etc.

That's why I have satellite TV. I have one of the portables - a Winegard Pathway X2 and get DISH channels. You can get HBO, Cinemax, etc movies or Pay Per View. With Dish there is no contract and I believe you can shut down your service and then restart, but I don't know the particulars on that.

It kind of depends on how important TV and movies are to you. I fulltime so I want TV just like I had in my sticks and bricks home.

I have a Verizon MiFi and a 20 gig data plan for internet usage.

My phone is an Iphone from Straight Talk running their unlimited plan for $45 that uses the Verizon network.

As a fulltimer I wanted Verizon for everything because they seem to have the best overall coverage.

Tim

[GMandJM]

dangit...dupliposted again.

[GMandJM]

strollin wrote:
Streaming works great for me (but I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan on Verizon).

I so envy your data plan!!! And it's probably locked in at $30 a month? Lucky you!

[GMandJM]

GMandJM wrote:

10GB is a significant chunk of data and it's usually more than we need in a normal month. If/when there's anything left at the end of a cycle, we find something to stream.

We use a JetPack from Verizon. (Sierra Wireless brand, I think?). It defaults to 4G (Fourth Generation) signal if available. If that isn't available, it switches to 3G (slower) and it even went to 1X (1xrtt) when we were parked in the back loop of Myakka.
(Usable but snail-slow.)

The nice thing about pre-paid is never getting hit with overages or having to watch your usage so you don't go over. Last winter, at the end of a cycle, we streamed episodes of "Justified" and when our data ran out, it cut off Tim Olyphant mid-sentence.

Unfortunately, Verizon doesn't offer much choice in pre-paid data plans.
$90 for 10GB (more than enough for us in a 30-day cycle);
$60 for 3GB (might be enough, but for another $30 you get 6GB more) and
$15 for 250MB (great if you only need it for an hour or two, I suppose)

You can chose a plan and change plans after that cycle. We do NOT do automatic reactivation at the end of a cycle. Just a personal preference (or maybe it's me having trust issues, who knows )

As for our OTA antenna, it works fairly well. It's one of those omni-directional ones with a remote (sorry, can't think of the brand) that alot of coaches have. You're right - it depends on where we're parked. Near Orlando we got a gazillion channels. In The Everglades we got one Spanish language religious channel.

You have lots of options. The hardest part is figuring out what you really want.

[MrWizard]

yes they do
and i make effort to return movies to the Same Redbox, so others who use that box
can also rent That Disc

[Charlie_D_]

Wally World and many drug stores and grocery stores have Red Box. Lot's of movies available from them. Do not have to be returned to same store.

[AlmostBoatless]

Great advice here, thank you all!

[AlmostBoatless]

GMandJM wrote:
.................

We use a pay-by-the-month JetPack for Internet (mostly e-mail, bill paying and web surfing). It's 3G or 4G so it has gotten a fairly usable signal everywhere except The Everglades. If we're not on the road and using it, we don't have to pay for it, which is nice.
May I ask which plan and through whom? This would be perfect! pay by the month.

Thanks for the advice about the $, I believe you are correct here.

So the question will be how much internet do we use with our laptops and will 10 gigs a month be enough? Do I have this decision right?

Any other advice would be appreciated! Thank you so much!

(PS: You might want to ask more questions before signing up for that Verizon plan. It may be$100+ per month for 10 GB of data to share and then an additional $15 per line charge - meaning $15 for your phone, $15 more for your spouses phone and $15 more for the JetPack.)

[AlmostBoatless]

Thank you all for the education. Easy to understand! I think Redbox will be the way to go for movies.

How is your reception with your RV antenna? It depends on where you are and parked?