Internet access on the road and at home

We are all paying much higher wireless bills than we would like but some of us have no choices. I live in an area that is only served by Verizon 3G with my only other internet access choice being satellite dish.
I live in hope that some day someone will install a WiMax tower with longer range than the 6 miles of present wireless towers, and pass on some savings to me.

Never had a house payment as high as some of your folks internet bill. Guess I'm in the wrong league. :S

We have two Millenicom plans that cost us $180 a month for our internet access and limited streaming. They work well on the road as well as at the house. With Millenicom you can shut down the service and pay a small startup fee when you want to use it again as for an upcoming trip.

Next month we go to an AT&T T-1 line installed at the house as DSL is not available from them much less broadband cable. It will cost us $1500 for the equipment and a little under $500 a month. The joys of being in an AT&T phone company monopoly area with no competition. Helps that they have the US Congress, Supreme Court, and the FCC in their hip pocket.

If you want to stream video on a service like straight talk
I suggest you get a smart phone that has mini HDMI output and get the mini to full HDMI cable
You can then connect the phone to the TV
The video streamed on the phone will be visible on the TV and you can watch streaming video in comfort, without breaking the no tethering rules, because the pc is not involved, you are simply connecting a larger display screen
Many smart phones have full hd screens, just too small too hold and watch a two hour movie in comfort with our old eyes
You use the phones browser and the phones video, not a, pc connection
No Wi-Fi hotspot, No USB cable, No PC
Of course the data speed must keep up our it won't be any fun
And I don't know what straight talk would say about this
But you would be in compliance and not breaking the rules

You are using an incredible amount of data - I am guessing you are streaming video which can use 1Gb per hour of video or you are tethering to your laptop and you are going to graphically intensive websites. Straight Talk's agreement says no tethering. You might get away with that tethering to a tablet but they will know if you are tethering to a computer as a computer browser uses data faster than a mobile browser on a tablet or phone. A regular contract plan does not care because they are happy to charge you $250 a month for extra data.

We made the switch from contract plan phones to no contract plan phones - we each have a different plan - my wife is on Straight Talk with Verizon service for $45 a month. I am on TMobile with 5GB of 4G data for $30 a month. I have yet to come close to using 5 Gb but I am not streaming video.

Straight talk, no roaming means , no roaming off Verizon network
Unlimited talk and text data, means the phone, no hotspot to the pc
Not saying you can't make it work, IDK
But if they catch you they cancel your account..closed ..bye bye

WOW! Never had any of those problems with AT&T or Verizon. All my requests for service at AT&T has been in the U.S. and English speaking and knowledgeable. Setting up AT&T e-mail through Yahoo is a little different. It doesn't seem to set up automatically but manual works OK. They use IMAP. I set it up in Outlook on my laptop. I think Verizon also has e-mail through Yahoo.

I have been fairly happy with AT&T but if you are out of area they will cut off your data. I have 2 Galaxy S3 smart phones and internet service with AT&T. I also have a Verizon Jetpack for internet. Verizon has a larger area but their service is lacking.

I find if you change your home page to a blank page instead of, for an example, a news page, your GBs goes further. Some of the home pages have things moving all the time which uses time up quickly. Plus check your e-mail on Outlook. JMHO

djgarcia wrote:

When I am NOTconnected to WiFi, some applications will burn up data, especially radio talk shows or movies.

There's a huge, huge difference between the data usage of an audio stream (talk radio) and a video stream. Streaming music on Pandora uses 40-50 MB/hr compared to the 0.5-2 GB/hr used by a video stream. That's more than a factor of ten difference. The only way talk radio can blow your data budget would be if you leave it on 24/7.

I currently have Verizon with one smart phone, one stupid phone and a Mifi hotspot. The last two months I have exceeded my 10gig data allowance and had to purchase 4 gig extra. Not sure whats going on there, but that is another problem.

When I am NOTconnected to WiFi, some applications will burn up data, especially radio talk shows or movies. You just have to do some research on the apps you use to determine if they use up data.

My Verizohe bill is close to $250/month. I am looking to reduce my monthly cost and get unlimited data. I would like to stay with Verizon if possible becauee of their coverage.

I understand your desire to stay with Verizon. I had to figure out what areas I spend most of my time when I am on the road doing my RVing. Then I checked both Verizon and AT&T for the best coverage in those areas. For me, AT&T gave me the best coverage.
I have my home and internet service on 1 account. $86. I have two cell phones with unlimited calls and texting. $145. As a side note, AT&T tech support SUCKS!:) all AT&T tech support is outsourced and good luck connecting with some one who can adequately speak english, use Googel for your search engine NOT Yahoo. My tech service from Apple is outstanding and they have helped me with initial set up issues with AT&T and Yahoo. Even the Apple tech service folks will tell you how screwed up Yahoo is. Just my 2 cents.

ed6713 wrote:
I don't think you will be able to find any 4g unlimited internet plans, especially on the VZ network. There are, or used to be, a few unlimited 3G plans on the very limited Sprint network.

We had the Millenicom 20 gig plan ($90/ month) but gave it up because we also wanted to stream movies. At home we went with a Century Link DSL plan for $30/month unlimited data. On the road I use the iPhone as a hotspot with the VZ 4 gig plan. No streaming on that plan. Just basic e-mail and surfing. We can download large files, like movies, using WiFi access when available.

High speed, unlimited on the road internet is about history.

Yes, unlimited cellular internet is pretty much gone unless you have a grandfathered plan, but that doesn't mean that you can't stream video if you do it sensibly. Millenicom will let people buy an additional 20GB on their 20GB plans so for $180/mo you can have 40GB. Streaming video is typically 0.5-2.0GB/hr so that 40GB is roughly equal to 20-80 hrs of video a month (assuming that was all you used it for.)

Even though we have an unlimited plan and stream a lot of video we normally use no more than 40-50GB/mo so we could live on 40GB if we needed to. For several weeks this month we've not been able to access satellite TV because of trees so our usage for the month has been extremely high because we've been streaming everything we watch and our total usage was only 64GB for the month.

IMHO we're getting very close to the point where it will be feasible to stop paying for satellite TV and go only to streaming. If I took the >$100/mo I'm paying DirecTV and applied it to my cellular usage I'd be able to afford a 50GB/mo Verizon plan and there would be little difference in what I could watch. If I could figure out how to get HBO and Showtime streaming without a satellite TV or cable subscription, everything I watch could be obtained via streaming.