Cost for truly unlimited data - Wifi/hotspot

[way2roll]

I know variations of this have been asked before so apologies in advance. As our travel season ramps up I am looking for a hotspot. I work remote and so I will need to periodically work on some days and we also stream a lot of content. My company has a deal with ATT where our phones get truly unlimited data very cheap - like $17/month. But the hotspot feature is disabled. To activate the hot spot feature on the phone increases the price to $30, not bad but there would be a 5 MG cap - that won't work. I can add a stand alone hotpsot to my plan but the truly unlimited data for that is $80/month. I thought that was high. But in the grand scheme of things with my phone plans being so cheap, overall it's not bad. But I thought $80 for unlimited data for a hot spot was pretty expensive. I thought about going with another company just for the hotspot but none will do it without an accompanying phone plan. So do I bite the bullet and pay the $80 knowing that the rest of my plan is really cheap, or do I go elsewhere and where would that be?

To Summarize - 3 phones on my plan with unlimited data = $70/month ($17 each plus fees). To add an unlimited hotspot would be $80 bringing the total to $150 for all 4 devices. So the one device more than doubles my bill.

Is there a cheaper, stand-alone, hotpsot with unlimited data plan out there?

[joezippy]

way2roll wrote:
Sounds like my $80 truly unlimited (no throttling or limits) on a dedicated hot spot with ATT coverage isn't such a bad plan after all. I do like some of the options you guys have thrown out there, but I'd rather not have another phone or use a phone as a hotspot.

The Calyx option has me thinking...that equates to about $40/month. Looks like it's a one time deal annually. No real contract per se. Pay the full year up front and don't re-up next year if you don't want it. But if you don't use it, that's money wasted. With my company plan via ATT I can cancel at any time with no fee and add it back - again with no fee. That's one of the nice perks.

Incidentally, when I researched this last year, my ATT hotspot would have been $50. I didn't really need it at the time, now I am kind of kicking myself.

One thing I had thought of, if the hotspot performs well enough, it's cheaper than what I am paying for my home internet. When we lived in rural MD we survived on a hot spot alone for years because we were too remote for cable. So I could end up cancelling the home internet and save a lot of money.

Quick question, as I'm leaning toward Visible:

1) If Visible is on Verizon and Calyx is on TMobile wouldn't you get better service from Visible? Plus, if I get 4 in my family to join me, Visible is only 25/mo...

Currently on Google Fi, https://fi.google.com/about/plans/

I too am thinking about dropping the home service.

[way2roll]

Sounds like my $80 truly unlimited (no throttling or limits) on a dedicated hot spot with ATT coverage isn't such a bad plan after all. I do like some of the options you guys have thrown out there, but I'd rather not have another phone or use a phone as a hotspot.

The Calyx option has me thinking...that equates to about $40/month. Looks like it's a one time deal annually. No real contract per se. Pay the full year up front and don't re-up next year if you don't want it. But if you don't use it, that's money wasted. With my company plan via ATT I can cancel at any time with no fee and add it back - again with no fee. That's one of the nice perks.

Incidentally, when I researched this last year, my ATT hotspot would have been $50. I didn't really need it at the time, now I am kind of kicking myself.

One thing I had thought of, if the hotspot performs well enough, it's cheaper than what I am paying for my home internet. When we lived in rural MD we survived on a hot spot alone for years because we were too remote for cable. So I could end up cancelling the home internet and save a lot of money.

[1492]

If you can live with smartphone hotspot unlimited 4G/5G mobile data at max bandwidth of 5Mbps up/down, then Verizon's Visible would be about the least expensive route $40.month. Or as low as $25.month if you join an existing party pay group, does not have to be family/friends, with at least 4 members. I use this as my remote work backup.

I also have an AT&T high usage mobile broadband account at $99. month which uses a 4G mobile router (Ethernet/WiFi). About 6x faster data rates than Visible.

[Tom_M1]

Check out Visible. They have unlimited everything including hotspot for $40/month. This can be reduced to $25/month by joining a Party Pay plan. They can slow your data rate down if the tower that you are connected to becomes congested. This happens only for the period of congestion. The data rate for the hotspot is capped at 5Mb/s but that works fine for my use. Visible is a Verizon owned company so service is Verizon. You can purchase a smart phone for $49 or trade in a phone and get it free. I have had Visible for almost two years and it's been great.

Check it out here:
https://www.visible.com/

[ford_truck_guy]

This what I use - Calyx WIFI

Its $400.00 per year for TRULY UNLIMITED data.. that's $33.00 monthly.

You pay $500.00 for the first year and you get the HOT SPOT..SIM CARD .. and plan with T-Mobile/Sprint...

I use mine all the time... watch movie after movie , all HD with no throttling... WAs just away for a week... watched internet tv every day or night.. used my laptop as well.. You can hook up to 10 devices I believe at a time..

At times we had Netflix inside, and HULU outside with no issues.

[valhalla360]

We are paying $65 for a phone with unlocked hotspot.

It does slow down after 10gig but even the slow rate works for us.

We've maxed out at around 40gig in a month but there is stray comments around the web that excessive use can result in them not asking you to be a customer anymore.

[Seattle_Steve]

TravelData might be worth investigating.

[fpoole]

Well I have a T-Mobile and Verizon Mifi 4g unlimited (don't know if still available or not, thinking not), don't know if still available the T-Mobile 5G M2000b MiFi brick for some $50 mo 100G before throttled but make sure you have T-Mobile area coverage, it's looking better.
This link might help narrow the search down a little, very informative it is:

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/

Hope that helps..